Latest / Partnerships Unraveled / 012- How embracing the Christmas mindset helps you build long-lasting partnerships

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012- How embracing the Christmas mindset helps you build long-lasting partnerships · Partnerships Unraveled

• 0:07
  Welcome back to Partnerships Unraveled.
• 0:09
  The podcast where we unravel the mysteries of partnerships and channel on a weekly basis.
• 0:15
  My name is Rick van den Bosch, and I'm the CEO and founder of Channext.
• 0:18
  And I'm here together with Alex Whitford, VP partners at Channext.
• 0:22
  Alex, how are you doing today?
• 0:22
  Yeah, really good.
• 0:25
  It's my favourite time of the year.
• 0:27
  We're coming up to Christmas, which is awesome.
• 0:29
  Yeah.
• 0:30
  The Partnerships Unraveled Christmas edition.
• 0:33
  Been looking forward to this one for a very long time.
• 0:35
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 0:37
  For anyone who's listening, please go over to YouTube because you're going to see me and Rick scratching our skin off because we're wearing the itchiest Santa suits, I think, of all time.
• 0:45
  Yeah, very ridiculous outfits.
• 0:47
  Here Santa reindeer, Santa jacket.
• 0:49
  So make sure you don't miss out.
• 0:52
  But I think for today, Alex, it might be fun actually to look at some of the similarities or the things we can learn from the Christmas feeling and the meaning of Christmas and how we could actually use that to the best for partnerships as well.
• 1:06
  So Alex, you always start with the definition and I thought for today it might be fun.
• 1:10
  What can we learn within partnerships from Christmas?
• 1:14
  Sure.
• 1:14
  So I love Christmas, but I think I love Christmas so much because I really enjoy buying presents for people.
• 1:22
  So enjoy giving more than receiving.
• 1:25
  And I think you get the maximum entertainment out of Christmas because typically you buy lots of people presents and you get to watch them unwrap it.
• 1:31
  And that's always a nice experience, especially if you put a lot of thought into those presents.
• 1:36
  And that nice.
• 1:36
  Dopamine kick when someone opens a present and it really sort of means something to them.
• 1:41
  The same is true for partnerships, right?
• 1:43
  If you go and build a great strategy to work with a certain subset of partnerships and you develop a long business plan and then you succeed with it, it's that giving over receiving mentality means you're going to enjoy the process more and get more outcome from it.
• 1:58
  And I think if that's not the meaning of Christmas, I don't know what is.
• 2:02
  Yeah, I think if you look at partnerships it's all about trust, of course.
• 2:06
  And there's no better way to build trust than by giving.
• 2:09
  I think we spoke a lot about it in the episode before already.
• 2:12
  Like if you start with a partnership but not just when you started, but it's a continuous process.
• 2:17
  Actually keep thinking what can I give to my partner?
• 2:20
  How can I help them?
• 2:21
  How can I make it about them?
• 2:23
  Because then eventually you will receive.
• 2:23
  Yeah.
• 2:26
  And it's the thoughtfulness within the gift, right?
• 2:29
  To continue the metaphor, it's all well and good if you just buy eleven pairs of socks for people.
• 2:34
  It is what it is.
• 2:34
  But if there is some uniqueness to each of those gifts, there's some thought gone into it.
• 2:40
  That gift is going to be far better received as long as your understanding is correct, than just a thoughtless gift that you just bought everyone.
• 2:47
  And I think the same approach is true for partnerships.
• 2:49
  Rather than getting ten gifts for everyone, why don't you just get one for each person?
• 2:55
  But you've really put some time into it, you've really put them some thought, it's unique to them.
• 3:00
  Those are the presents that you cherish years later and those are the partnerships that will last years.
• 3:06
  I actually really like that one.
• 3:07
  If I think about my personal life.
• 3:09
  My girlfriend loves Christmas, he's already thinking about Christmas gifts three months before it starts.
• 3:15
  But there's so much thought in it that as soon as my brother or my sister or her parents unwrap it, that you can really see such a big smile on their face.
• 3:23
  And it's exactly that.
• 3:24
  Like by putting the thought into it and make it about them again, then you bring so much value in such a situation.
• 3:31
  And I really like that actually to think about that towards partnerships as well.
• 3:35
  Yeah.
• 3:35
  And what's funny is thoughtfulness and sort of uniqueness and specificity to the partner can actually be money.
• 3:42
  Both from a presence perspective, right?
• 3:44
  We all know someone who just chucks money at the problem.
• 3:46
  They buy a very expensive gift, which is nice, but actually someone who's gone through to the time to get something that's funny and really mean something you can shortcut a lot.
• 3:55
  The same is true of sort of MDF and business plans and strategies.
• 3:59
  Yes, you can just throw money at the problem and in some ways that will work.
• 4:03
  However, if I go and craft a really unique plan that really is going to help us grow together and I take that just to one partner, suddenly I'm the one that's really created something and I can pull away and beat just throwing money at the problem.
• 4:18
  So I think that's advice to any of the maybe smaller budgets out there.
• 4:23
  Drive, focus, drive uniqueness.
• 4:25
  And suddenly you can really rub against the grain of the macro vendors who are just chucking huge amounts of MDF around.
• 4:32
  Indeed, eventually it's all human to human within partnerships.
• 4:35
  And that's really if you really bring it in such a way and position it towards your partners, then you can come with a point of view that no other vendor can actually match.
• 4:45
  Because you know the most about the partner, you've done the most research, you bring them a very specific gift, or not even a gift, but indeed a deed maybe sometimes as well.
• 4:54
  And I think that's indeed where there's a massive opportunity in your partnerships by making it super personal with your partners.
• 5:01
  Yeah and like you say it is, people buy from people, right?
• 5:05
  And I think that's why we love the industry that we're in.
• 5:08
  Because you can put the best strategy and the best plans together and all the detail that you need.
• 5:14
  But at the end of the day, if you can combine that with, oh, you really like to do business with me, and we play golf at the weekends and whatever else, oh, okay.
• 5:23
  That's the person, that's the team.
• 5:25
  That's the business that I'm going to want to continue to work with for years and years and years.
• 5:30
  And I think really that's what this comes down to.
• 5:33
  It's not family because it's business.
• 5:35
  It's never family, but let's try and build those relationships.
• 5:38
  Let's try and build those long lasting friendships through the process.
• 5:41
  It makes the process more enjoyable, but it also delivers the outcome, which is just the win win that we're all looking for.
• 5:49
  Say one of our listeners is thinking about, I want to give more to my partnerships.
• 5:53
  Maybe we can brainstorm a little bit together, like what our deeds you can actually do or acts of kindness towards your partners that can actually show that giving mentality.
• 6:04
  So you really build that relationship.
• 6:06
  Shortcut number one, ask them.
• 6:06
  Right?
• 6:09
  I think so often we're trying to reinvent the wheel or come up with this unique idea and sometimes the easiest thing to do is just go, hey, how can I help you more?
• 6:18
  You're central to my strategy.
• 6:20
  You'll really call for my growth in the upcoming year.
• 6:22
  How could we work more closely together?
• 6:24
  They'll probably give you a pretty good answer.
• 6:26
  And it's not to say you have to do that or you might want to then put your own twist.
• 6:30
  But don't spend months and months and months trying to come up with an idea when the answer can just be sitting right in front of you.
• 6:36
  Yeah, that's actually my mom's Christmas strategy.
• 6:40
  She just asks everyone and goes everywhere because she really wants to give what you actually want, like she does not want to miss.
• 6:47
  So that's her strategy and it always works because you're super happy with what you're getting because you literally gave it some thought yourself and you know what you can expect as well.
• 6:56
  So that's definitely a really good strategy in partnerships.
• 6:59
  Yeah, exactly.
• 7:01
  Like you say you're not going to miss.
• 7:03
  No partner is going to turn around at the end of that process and go, they gave me exactly what I want.
• 7:08
  Now, it might not be the best thing, and that is the other thing that's worth discussing.
• 7:13
  I really like that Tom Ford quote when he says if he'd asked his customers what they would have wanted, it would have been a faster horse and instead he designed the car.
• 7:20
  So there is a bit of understanding the problems that they have and then coming up with the strategy to solve it.
• 7:26
  But having that discussion is a shortcut to find out what the need is.
• 7:30
  And then once you understand the need, you might be able to come up with an even better solution, which is to go back.
• 7:38
  That's my mom's textbook.
• 7:39
  One on one, I'll say I want this.
• 7:40
  And then come the end of it, she won't have bought it for me, but she will have got me something that actually probably meant a lot more because I was asking for a PS2 or whatever it was when I was eleven.
• 7:51
  And she goes and gets me something much more heartfelt.
• 7:53
  Obviously I was devastated not to get the PS2, but at the end of the day you just move past those things and actually I've got a cherished gift that I still have today which I never would have held on to that PS2 for.
• 8:04
  Yeah, I love that actually.
• 8:06
  It always starts with asking, getting to know each other because you can only give very thoughtful gifts once you know each other a lot better.
• 8:12
  So in the beginning be very concise about asking your partners what can I do for you?
• 8:17
  Where do you want help?
• 8:18
  But then as soon as you get to know them better and you get to get a better view of who other persons within that partners, what do they value?
• 8:25
  Then you can try to go a layer deeper where you actually give what they won't even expect sometimes.
• 8:32
  And those are oftentimes the things that really resonate and that they will remember.
• 8:36
  Yeah, it probably is actually quite a good Litmus test for how good is your relationship with a partner.
• 8:41
  Could you come up with a really heartfelt strategy that's going to drive their business forward?
• 8:45
  And if you don't think you can do that confidently, you probably don't know enough about your partner.
• 8:50
  In which case get into the relationship building mode, get into understanding where they're headed, what their barriers are, who they're up against, how you can help really craft that relationship.
• 9:00
  And then over time you can start to come with more proactive ideas, more proactive plans that are unique to their value.
• 9:08
  But like you say, unless you've really got that entrenched relationship that's very hard to do.
• 9:13
  So get going with that first.
• 9:15
  Ask them what they need and then over time you can start to develop unique ideas.
• 9:20
  How could you ingrain giving more into your channel team like that?
• 9:25
  Everybody feels it and knows, okay, that's what we're doing all the time towards our partners.
• 9:30
  Yeah.
• 9:30
  So I think there are obviously some ways that you can force the behavior, right?
• 9:35
  Which is you give people a quota of things they need to do.
• 9:38
  I remember I listened to a podcast a while ago around Pret A Manger, it's a cafe in, in the UK and they had each person that worked there had a mandatory gift allocation on a daily basis.
• 9:52
  So they had to give, I think it was something like five to ten free drinks or free sandwiches away through the day.
• 9:58
  And what it did was it forced the staff to think, right, well there's that local customer who comes in every day.
• 10:04
  I know his order.
• 10:05
  So I'll just make it and I'll give it to him.
• 10:06
  Or that person seems to be having a really rough day.
• 10:09
  And what that did was, yes, feasibly that's a loss for the business, right?
• 10:12
  They're giving away thousands of free products every day.
• 10:15
  However, the benefit is the brand grew like crazy because suddenly if I get a
• 10:20
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: 00 AM and you give me a free coffee once, that guarantees I'm going there all the time from that point onwards.
• 10:27
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: So there is very forcible ways you can encourage that behavior that's obviously one extreme where it became mandatory and they literally tracked it in their CRM so they could see per person how many they were giving away.
• 10:39
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: But there are ways that you can softly encourage it in terms of who sent out an advent calendar, who sent out Christmas presents to all their partners, who did that softer behavior which just builds that relationship to another level.
• 10:53
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: I think that's a good way you can do it through culture.
• 10:55
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: So really making sure it's ingrained within the culture of the team and create a vision or a mission for the team as well.
• 11:02
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: We always want to give to our partners and then give tangible examples of how can you do that on a daily basis but also reward a team like, hey, who gave the most this month?
• 11:12
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Or who gave the most this week?
• 11:13
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Not even reward in terms of money or whatever, but really in terms of getting some shine, so to say.
• 11:19
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: But then there's indeed also the very practical way where you can say, okay, we want to do this.
• 11:23
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: We know that it's good for the partners, for ourselves, for the business, so we can also make a little game of it, whereas we make sure that we do it at least a certain amount of times per month, per quarter.
• 11:35
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: It's actually a nice idea indeed, because then you have it on both sides that everybody feels it and that everybody is like I think it's also something you can hire for, actually when you look at people like, are you a giving person?
• 11:47
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And do you have that capability in you?
• 11:51
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And on the other hand, just make it very practical where you can measure it, where you can really leverage it in a good way.
• 11:57
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Yeah.
• 11:58
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And that culture comes down from the top, right?
• 12:00
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: I think it's really funny when I see businesses, and I've done consulting in lots of businesses like this, where they go, we want a more positive culture.
• 12:07
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And then I look at the senior leadership and I go, well, you guys aren't particularly positive people, and yet you're expecting your feet on the street to suddenly become much nicer and much more engaging.
• 12:17
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And actually what you need to do is senior leadership needs to drive that down from the top and then the business needs to drive that down to the partners and it's all one piece of connected tissue.
• 12:26
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: So you want to encourage that behaviour the whole way.
• 12:29
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: So things like celebrating partner activity well, if you don't celebrate the CAMs activity, the CAM isn't going to celebrate the partner activity.
• 12:35
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And so building that positive force of like, we celebrate our wins together.
• 12:40
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: We're a unified team.
• 12:41
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: We work together all the way through the business.
• 12:43
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: That's critical to having that giving and reciprocity culture through the business, which at the end of the day is going to promote.
• 12:51
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: I want to work with you because I enjoy working with you.
• 12:55
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And I think that's eventually what it's all about.
• 12:58
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Like once indeed, when that personal relationship is so strong, when your partners talk to their end users, they will think about you before other people.
• 13:08
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And I think that's really where you want to get and how can you get that into your partner organization as much as possible, that you get the partner mind share, that you help to get them engaged and really keep improving the relationship you have with your partners.
• 13:21
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Yeah, exactly.
• 13:21
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And I think if you can spend more time focused on how to maximize value and maximize relationship with your partner and really drive them forward, that ultimately the end of the day is going to be what creates that positive future for you.
• 13:38
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And it's funny because we talk about Christmas and one of the things that I don't know, inevitably in our family, we talk about at Christmas is how have things gone and how are things going to go?
• 13:46
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And you sort of do that analysis on the year behind and year forward.
• 13:50
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And that's something that you should be building with your customers at all times, because you want to assess, how did I perform?
• 13:56
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: How did you perform?
• 13:57
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And so that we can improve on those and take those learnings through the year.
• 14:01
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And that's foundational to what happens at Christmas, but also foundational to what every channel account manager should be doing at this time of year, which is an analysis on how did I do as an individual, how did my business do and how did my partners do, and then what do we learn?
• 14:16
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Yeah, I think at the end of the year, during Christmas, we always get into that almost natural mode of reviewing what went well, what didn't go well, what do we scale, what do we improve, etc.
• 14:27
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And you can do it for your personal life, but you can also do it in business.
• 14:30
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Indeed, I think it's very interesting.
• 14:32
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Like, how do you think we should actually implement that into your partnerships?
• 14:36
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And there we work a lot in quarterly, of course.
• 14:39
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: What can we learn from that?
• 14:41
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Well, I think certainly in my family, one of the reasons that at Christmas you start to do that piece of analysis of how the year's gone is typically you're sitting down with a much wider set of family.
• 14:52
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: That's always how it was with us.
• 14:53
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: So I only childhood to my parents all the time, but then at Christmas I'd have my uncles and my cousins and we wouldn't see them that often.
• 15:01
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And so intrinsically you ask that question like how's your year gone?
• 15:04
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And then you have that discussion.
• 15:05
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And I think that's the blueprint, which is don't sit down just with the people you always speak to.
• 15:11
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Sit down with a wider group, get their feedback on how they view the partnerships going.
• 15:16
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: So if I'm always speaking to purchasing and the sales director, great.
• 15:20
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Well, let me go and speak to the VP of Sales and CEO and Marketing leader and get those wider thoughts, because they can give their own unique perspective from their viewpoint and that's critical to them understanding.
• 15:33
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Okay, maybe I did a great job with sales and purchasing, but I did a terrible job with marketing.
• 15:38
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Oh, they actually don't value the relationship in the way the other parts of the organization do.
• 15:43
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Well, that's a lesson learned.
• 15:44
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: I need to spend more time in that area and you can start to do that evaluation.
• 15:48
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And again, the secret is just ask the question, they will tell you the answer.
• 15:52
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Partners want to do more business with every vendor.
• 15:55
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: They want to grow.
• 15:57
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: So if you ask how can we perform better?
• 15:59
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: What did I mess up on?
• 16:00
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: How could I have done better through the year?
• 16:02
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: They'll give you the answer every time.
• 16:04
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Yeah, I think that's actually a really good one to look at it from a broader perspective because probably with your champions within the partner, you have daily content or sorry, daily contact or weekly contact.
• 16:14
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: But if you look at it from a broader perspective, especially when you do reviews, you want to know from all stakeholders, especially executives, where are we heading, how did we do and what are the next steps?
• 16:26
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And I think indeed that's a good way of thinking about it.
• 16:29
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Like when you do your review, don't just do it with your champion, but do it in a broader perspective as well.
• 16:34
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And then because you get so much more information than you would do just with the champion, for sure.
• 16:40
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And I think one of the things that's critical in the channel is the champion very often isn't the decision maker, right?
• 16:46
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: So sometimes a relationship can be terminated or not prioritized and your champion sitting there saying, no, I think you're doing a great job.
• 16:54
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And so if you don't get that wider view, you don't have that level of defense that if a decision is going to happen that at least the executive sponsor is going to give you a call to say, hey, we're making this decision, here's the reason why.
• 17:07
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And then you can counteract it.
• 17:08
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: If you don't have that level of relationship, you can't give them that unique gift, then you need to work a lot harder into going up and wider within the business because that's ultimately what's going to defend you.
• 17:20
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Yeah, absolutely.
• 17:22
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: I was just thinking about like when looking back, a big part for me is always and within our family is also gratitude.
• 17:29
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: So indeed, like really thanking each other, but also just thanking, like in general, like, what happened during the year and stuff like that.
• 17:37
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: What do you think within partnerships?
• 17:39
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Is gratitude an important piece of that?
• 17:42
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And how could we express that in the best way?
• 17:44
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: For sure.
• 17:44
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: It's actually one of my big bugbears in partnerships, when you do a lot of work to make something happen and people don't understand the context of what you've had to go through to get it, because then they're never as grateful as you think they should be.
• 18:00
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And so explaining that context continually is critical.
• 18:04
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: So, for example, if you go and get a partner asks you for a 10% discount or whatever, and that's within your remit, you can just sign that off.
• 18:13
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Okay, that's fine.
• 18:14
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And you just sign it off.
• 18:15
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: They say thanks, or I've had to go to my CEO CFO, do a full presentation.
• 18:20
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: It's taken me three weeks to get it's been really complicated, and I get the 10% signed off.
• 18:24
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: If I've had to jump through those hoops to make that happen, I want the partner to know how much work that's been so that they can give me the right level of gratitude and vice versa.
• 18:35
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Right.
• 18:35
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: It's no good just being like, oh, thanks for bringing that customer on board.
• 18:39
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Our thanks for making that call.
• 18:40
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: If it's a lot of work, defining that context is really, really important.
• 18:45
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: The same goes if you go and buy a gift, right.
• 18:48
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: If you've had to wait in line at the store for 8 hours, and it was the first one of the thing, and it was signed by whoever, and you've gone through all of that complexity, it's important that the person receiving the gifts understands that journey, because that shows how hard you're working for the relationship.
• 19:04
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: So CSM is out there channel account managers, anyone who's working in that partnership organization, define the level of work you've had to go through to get things done so that people can show you the right amount of gratitude, so they can see how hard you're working, but also vice versa.
• 19:21
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: If a partner has done something for you, ask them how that process was.
• 19:24
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Was it easy, was it complicated?
• 19:26
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And then give them the gratitude that's sort of equal to the amount of effort that's gone through that process.
• 19:32
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Yeah.
• 19:32
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And I think really thank them for it and expressing it in a very clear way, celebrating the wins together, but also just give them a call here and there like, hey, I really appreciate working with you, or I'm so excited about how we did this specific project and things like that.
• 19:48
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: I think it's really in those small gestures of gratitude where you can have massive impact and it's coming back towards like that culture of giving.
• 19:55
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: That's really what you want to ingrain in your partnerships and in your channel team, because that is what very strongly will build the relationships with your partners.
• 20:04
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Exactly.
• 20:05
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: I think where we want to get to is that channel account managers and partner managers and everyone who's working within that ecosystem understand that we're striving for success, but not all success is equal.
• 20:18
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Some of it took a lot of work and some of it was very opportunistic and very easy.
• 20:22
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And it's important that we reward the right behavior so that the gratitude for difficult, complex deals that required months and months of work aren't treated the same as, oh, that deal just came over the line.
• 20:33
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: It was nice and easy.
• 20:34
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: If someone's pulled there, pulled everything over the line at the end of quarter to help you get to your number.
• 20:40
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Yeah, they deserve to be taken out to dinner.
• 20:41
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: They deserve to be thanked properly because they've poured blood, sweat and tears into making your life work better.
• 20:48
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And so that reciprocity has to give that.
• 20:51
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And the same is true of partners.
• 20:53
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: My advice to them is treat your vendors well.
• 20:56
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Treat the people that work with you well because they want you to be successful and your success is their success.
• 21:02
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: But that reciprocity swings two ways.
• 21:04
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And I think I've always been able to see the partners who are going to do very, very well long term, because their senior executives look after vendors incredibly well, because they go, I'm going to take you out for dinner.
• 21:16
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: You grew our number by X.
• 21:18
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: I'm really appreciative of your effort.
• 21:20
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Guess what happens next year?
• 21:22
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: They double down on that effort and we get to drive that business over time.
• 21:25
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: So that giving and reciprocity and gratitude is so critical to that continual growth.
• 21:31
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Yes, reciprocity is a word I really love.
• 21:33
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: I think that's indeed, if you build a mission statement or a culture for your channel team, that should be in somewhere.
• 21:39
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Yeah, it's just look for the win win.
• 21:39
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Right.
• 21:42
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And I think that's why it's funny.
• 21:44
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: If you're going to build the perfect Christmas, you just want ten people who all prefer to give than receive, and then everyone's going to have an amazing time.
• 21:52
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Right.
• 21:52
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Where the relationships break down is when you've gone to loads of effort to buy me a present and I've just bought you some socks that you don't care about, that's not going to be an equal.
• 22:02
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And it might work for one Christmas, maybe two, but by the time the third one comes in, you're not putting the same level of effort into buying a present.
• 22:09
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And the same is true for partnerships.
• 22:11
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: I want to win and you want to win.
• 22:13
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: So if we both focus on making each other win, that relationship will last over the long term.
• 22:18
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Yeah.
• 22:19
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And I think that's when you really get into an equal relationship.
• 22:21
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Yes, you need to start with giving, but if it's always you giving, then it also won't feel well long term.
• 22:26
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And the other way around, it's exactly the same.
• 22:29
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: So that's a thing really like building that relationship is like, okay, what can I do for you?
• 22:34
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: But also do I feel that we mutually help each other in such a way and that's where the strongest partnerships really conquer.
• 22:42
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Yeah, exactly.
• 22:42
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And I think where you want that balance is that I'm thinking about you and you're thinking about me.
• 22:49
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And if we're both very selfless, that's where the strongest relationships are formed.
• 22:54
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Now, unfortunately, there's loads of people out there who are going to be thinking about their own priorities and I think lots of vendors will think, oh, what if I give a deal to this person and they don't give me anything back?
• 23:06
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: That's fine.
• 23:06
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: You just paid to find out who's the partner I should not be working with over the long term.
• 23:11
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: That's what that cost was to you.
• 23:13
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: That just means you can filter them out and find the next partner who's going to be thinking about how to drive your business.
• 23:19
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And once you've got that group of partners that are all being very selfless to you and you're being selfless to them, that's ultimately where you win.
• 23:26
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Yeah.
• 23:26
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: So then you got that group of partners where you have that strong giving culture within your team and also the mutually with your partners you've looked back to the last year, the last quarter, and then there's looking ahead, of course, because that's also a thing that happens a lot during Christmas dinners.
• 23:42
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: So, yeah.
• 23:42
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: What are your plans for next year?
• 23:44
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And I myself actually really like to use that time of the year as well, to set some goals and to think about what do I want for next year and what do I find important and things like that.
• 23:54
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: I think from that perspective, that's also crucial in partnerships, of course, like, what can we learn from that and how can we best implement creating a plan together with your partner?
• 24:05
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: So, three words when it comes to planning, and we use it internally all the time, stop, start, scale.
• 24:11
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: That for me is the best fundamental to understand what you're going to do in the upcoming year.
• 24:16
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: So you've done your analysis on where did we win, where did we lose and why.
• 24:21
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Then on the upcoming year, you can say, what are we going to start doing that we haven't done last year?
• 24:26
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: What are we going to start scaling up?
• 24:28
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Which is we did something a bit and it worked.
• 24:30
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: So we're going to double the resource, double the activity, whatever the metrics are to drive that performance growth and what failed and why.
• 24:38
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And then what are we just going to absolutely stop doing next year?
• 24:41
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And what's really good about that function is you don't need to.
• 24:45
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Add resource, you're actually reallocating priorities, but the efficiency massively grows because you stop doing the things that wasted time.
• 24:54
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: You start with some new bets and you allocate the resource that you stopped into scaling activities that you know will work.
• 25:00
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And suddenly, year over year, you start to impact genuine growth because of that continuous re optimization of resource.
• 25:08
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: So it's really recurring growth in such a way because you're always optimizing, always looking together with your partners.
• 25:15
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And I think it's actually really fun to not just create that stop start skill just yourself, but also ask your partner, do you also want to think about stop start skill?
• 25:24
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Like, what are things that we are doing well?
• 25:26
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: What are things that we should start with?
• 25:28
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And it really helps you to actually create a plan together towards the upcoming year or towards the upcoming quarter.
• 25:34
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Yeah.
• 25:35
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And it's almost obvious when you've done your analysis backwards well, and you've had that two way conversation and really gone, where did we win?
• 25:43
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Where did we lose?
• 25:43
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And why?
• 25:45
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: The plan for the upcoming year is actually very easy to do.
• 25:48
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And my advice to people who are struggling to build upcoming plans is you've not done your analysis backwards well enough because the plan should be very obvious to go, oh, we need to do more of this, less of this, and we should start these big bets because that's what our competitors are doing.
• 26:04
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Those plans become very easy to do because you've walked backwards and really gone through the detail effectively.
• 26:11
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And then I think when I look at that stop start skills, really looking at activities and initiatives to accelerate growth in such a way and in terms of goal setting, what are the type of questions to ask yourself and to ask together with the partners to set very clear goals, but also ensure that you're going to achieve those goals?
• 26:29
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Yes, that's always the bit that's difficult.
• 26:32
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And for me, there's three ways to create a real long term vision.
• 26:38
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And so the first thing you do is you measure, where are we today?
• 26:40
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And how did we perform?
• 26:42
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Then you plan against that growth so that you set a challenging but reasonable goal.
• 26:48
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: What you don't want to do is set a partner a goal.
• 26:50
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: They hit 40% and actually they've done a great job.
• 26:54
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: But because you set the goal so highly, they feel like they've failed.
• 26:57
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: If that happens continually, they will turn off.
• 27:00
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: So you want to get people between 90 and 120% that's that's your sort of barometer for, I set the goal at the right level and then drive the execution to that goal very clearly by clearly outlining who owns what responsibilities, what the deadlines are.
• 27:16
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And if you can break that down into an individual action list over a week by week and month by month basis, that's a plan that you can really drive cadence through and ultimately be successful.
• 27:27
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Yeah.
• 27:27
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And I think those are three other questions that we continuously use internally.
• 27:32
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Where are we going?
• 27:33
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: How are we getting there and by when do we want to get there?
• 27:37
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And if you make that very clear and really put your goals into milestones as well, then you can continuously measure with your partners where are we at compared to the plan?
• 27:46
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And I think if you do that at least on a weekly basis, then you actually have the cadence and the rhythm as well to ensure that if you're a little bit behind or whatever, that you can actually steer the wheel towards driving your goal again.
• 27:59
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Yeah, it's direction plan, deadline right at the end of the day.
• 28:02
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And I think that's where that constant check in of by week three we said we were going to be here, are we there or not?
• 28:09
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: That allows you to catch any misalignment of resource, misalignment of direction or poor execution very quickly and ultimately mean that you're not going to miss a quarter or a yearly goal.
• 28:20
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And I think that's so important because what you don't want to get to is you've brought all the executives in for your yearly review, it's gone.
• 28:29
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Okay?
• 28:30
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Then you set plans and then you get the whole way to the next year.
• 28:33
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: You might not spoken to any of these people in twelve months and you tell them more bad news.
• 28:38
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: That means the two impressions they've got from you over a twelve month cycle is bad performance.
• 28:43
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Bad performance.
• 28:44
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Instead, what you want is a very clearly defined goal that if you miss, you can very easily point out exactly where the misses are because you're tracking it week over week or guarantee success, which is obviously the whole point of setting a very accurate plan.
• 28:59
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And I think that tracking is crucial there.
• 29:01
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Indeed, like there's one thing to set the plan, but also you need to have a plan.
• 29:05
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: How do we track continuously with our partners?
• 29:08
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And then you really need to think about together with your partner or through automation, like how can we get all the data in, make sure that we can see it real time on a daily basis and then redirect our plans.
• 29:19
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And I think if you get to that point, that's where you can get such a head start over a lot of over the market, actually, because, you know, exactly where are we at?
• 29:29
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: What do I need to do today to get into the right direction and then measure again and again?
• 29:34
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And it becomes a daily process in such a way.
• 29:36
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Yeah, we use internally.
• 29:36
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: OKRs?
• 29:38
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And I'm a big evangelist for them.
• 29:40
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: I think it's a phenomenal productivity matrix so that you can really drive the business forward and businesses like Google and Apple and IBM and Microsoft all use OKRs, but like you say, they're automated frameworks, right?
• 29:53
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: So they know intrinsically, once tasks are finished, they just pull into a centralized management tool.
• 30:00
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: So that they can see the ongoing performance of the business completely cross functionally.
• 30:05
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And I think lots of people listening will be like, well, yeah, that's obvious.
• 30:08
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: That's why we have sales force.
• 30:10
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: But that works from a sales perspective.
• 30:12
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Now, imagine that same level of detail and tracking, but done for every area of the business.
• 30:18
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: That's ultimately what you want to drive for, for cross functional business success.
• 30:23
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And if that's done well, that's why these businesses continue to outperform everyone else, is because they're able to see.
• 30:29
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Marketing said they were going to do this by this date and it was tracked automatically and uploaded.
• 30:34
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: So I can see holistically from a helicopter view, are all of my areas performing?
• 30:40
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And if they're not great, then I can double down and understand why and start to implement changes very, very quickly.
• 30:46
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Yeah.
• 30:46
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: So in your partnerships, you could think of how is training going, how is marketing going, how are the other objectives besides sales going, et cetera.
• 30:54
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: So you really get that 360 view per partner, but also of your full partner landscape.
• 30:59
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Yeah.
• 30:59
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: So, for example, a great one that people will want to track is like partner certification.
• 31:03
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And so then you would be able to see, right, we said we were going to get 10,000 new partners certified on this matrix over the course of the year.
• 31:11
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Oh, they're all doing well except the UK.
• 31:11
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Why?
• 31:15
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Okay, maybe it's in the wrong language or blah, blah, blah.
• 31:18
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And then you can start to very quickly implement those changes and drive the progress that you need efficiently.
• 31:25
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And that's what stops you getting to the end of the year going, oh, we only did 3000, I don't understand why now we're tracking that week, too.
• 31:34
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: We've not seen the uptick that we are seeing in the other areas.
• 31:37
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Quick, let's put resource in to make that happen very quickly.
• 31:41
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Yeah, I think that's actually an excellent way to start wrapping this episode.
• 31:46
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Good pun wrapping. Well done.Actually.
• 31:50
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: What I think if you look at it within your channel team, is really, how can we get that culture of giving into it?
• 31:57
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Like, both from a culture perspective, but also from a practical perspective.
• 32:01
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: So maybe really ingrain it in terms of setting goals, in terms of giving, et cetera, as well.
• 32:06
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: Then secondly, it's really important to look back with your partners, express gratitude to each other, what did we do well, what didn't go well, et cetera.
• 32:15
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And then looking forward, you really want to get into the planning mode, so you want to set very specific and clear goals, but also look at initiatives.
• 32:23
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: What should we start, what should we stop, what should we scale?
• 32:26
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: And the combination of these three will help you to build very strong relationships with your partners.
• 32:31
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: I would like to thank you for today, Alex.
• 32:33
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: I would like to thank the listeners.
• 32:35
  free coffee because I go in there at 09: I hope they all have or had a really great Christmas and hope to see you next time in the Partnerships Unraveled podcast.