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Modern Partnership Best Practices · Sales Pipeline Radio

0:16
All right, we are back.
0:17
Welcome everybody to another episode of Sales Pipeline Radio.
0:20
I'm your host, Matt Heinz.
0:22
Excited to have you here as we record this in the US on a Thursday
0:27
before Memorial Day weekend.
0:29
Just excited to have our guest today, Jason Yarborough.
0:32
It's the last time I'm gonna call him by his full name.
0:33
We're going for Yarby from this point forward.
0:36
Here's what Jason, I told you that I used, I used Claude to help me prepare
0:40
for this episode and I asked it to give me a sort of a quick read summary of Yarby.
0:45
So here's what it said, and I wanna hear, get your feedback on this.
0:48
You ready?
0:52
Can you hear me?
0:55
Can't hear me.
0:59
Technical difficulties.
1:00
Do we blame this on Montana?
1:05
I don't know if you can hear me, but I have lost contact.
1:08
Oh, no.
1:08
I can hear you.
1:17
We were talking to each other so nicely just right before we went live.
1:21
So we're either gonna blame this on Montana or blame this on StreamYard,
1:24
maybe a little bit of both.
1:28
We'll figure it out.
1:30
I'm not gonna read your intro until you can hear it, 'cause I
1:33
want you to react to your intro.
1:35
So we'll get there.
1:38
Anyway, Yarby is the, with his, lovely wife, is the co-founder of Arcadia.
1:43
You can check it out at bearcadia.com.
1:45
I'll say, so what they're doing, a different and unique way of just
1:52
helping people with leadership challenges, not in a conference room
1:55
or boardroom, but outside in yurts.
1:59
And super excited to talk to Yarby about that here today.
2:03
See, we got him back.
2:03
Yarby, are you back?
2:04
Can we hear you?
2:06
I am back.
2:06
I am so sorry about that.
2:07
That was
2:07
crazy.
2:08
It's all good, man.
2:09
This is live, but don't worry about it.
2:11
Hey, listen, while you were gone, I was blaming Montana.
2:15
Yes
2:15
… I was blaming StreamYard.
2:20
I was blaming, I, that's, that's as far as I got, actually.
2:23
I most oftentime blame Montana, it's like I think we're shipping
2:25
in internet from your neighborhood.
2:27
So and today it's cloudy and snowy here in Montana, so everything is crazy.
2:31
So it's definitely, Montana's fault.
2:34
We can blame-
2:35
I, just, I'm a simple guy, and I still think the fact that I can be
2:38
talking to you basically live and you're all the way over there in
2:42
Montana, you can, I think, I just think, still think this is incredible.
2:46
We're, in the future, Matt.
2:47
This we- this is the future.
2:49
This is the future.
2:50
I have, I'm working with a group in Japan now, and I have to really, I have to
2:57
continue to not go to the recurring dad joke of, "You're, literally in the future.
3:01
I'm talking to you and it's already tomorrow.
3:03
I don't know how that is possible, but it is tomorrow whenever I talk to you."
3:08
I can't resist that either when I get talking to somebody in
3:10
Australia, which happens quite a bit.
3:12
I know.
3:12
So I'm, right there with you.
3:13
It's okay.
3:13
we're dads.
3:14
We can do that.
3:15
The nice thing about most dad jokes is they are apparent.
3:18
Oh, okay.
3:19
All right.
3:20
So, here's, what I didn't wanna read until you got on.
3:22
Okay, so here's what, here's how Claude wrote my intro to you.
3:25
Ready?
3:25
Here we go.
3:26
"Yarby is one of the most recognizable voices in the partnership world.
3:30
He spent the last several years arguing that ecosystem-led motions are the third
3:35
leg of revenue, along with inbound and outbound, and he's got the receipts.
3:39
300% ARR lift across several roles he's played as VP of partnerships
3:44
at a number of companies.
3:45
He's now running Arcadia as a part-time consult, part consultancy, part
3:50
community, part leadership retreat.
3:52
He's disarming, story-driven, allergic to BS, and a big believer
3:56
in trust as the operating system."
3:58
How'd she do?
3:59
How'd Claude do?
4:00
That was about 99.8% accurate.
4:02
I'm impressed.
4:03
That was good.
4:05
Third leg of revenue, I don't know.
4:07
That puts me low on the totem pole, but we'll, it's a robot.
4:09
We'll give her some grace.
4:10
I didn't say last leg, I said third leg.
4:13
If you have a stool and you don't have all three legs,
4:16
you're going to fall down fast.
4:18
This is true
4:21
… And I could argue that, like most companies are sitting looking
4:23
at that thinking, "Okay, I got inbound, I got outbound, I got
4:25
all bound," and aren't putting the kind of time and attention into
4:28
partnerships that they can and should.
4:31
I feel like for a while we had-
4:32
This is a very valid point,
4:33
We had this like near bound, we had this like partner-led growth, sort of
4:37
a frothiness for a while, and I feel I haven't heard about it in a while.
4:41
Is it, I don't think it's 'cause it doesn't work, 'cause it clearly works.
4:43
Is it because it's hard?
4:44
Is it because it's a lot easier to just, put together some outbound campaigns
4:49
and pick up the phone and make calls?
4:52
Partner programs can be extremely lucrative, but they're more
4:55
nuanced to get up and running.
4:58
Yeah, definitely that.
4:59
They're more nuanced to get running, and they're challenging.
5:01
They're challenging in the sense that, there's not a, tried and true
5:05
playbook the way there is with sales.
5:07
But also, it's a new motion.
5:09
I've talked about on LinkedIn before that a lot of, today's CROs didn't really come
5:14
up in, today's partnership motion, right?
5:18
A lot of today's CROs know reseller motions.
5:21
They know MSPs and VARs and whatnot, right?
5:25
We're running resell- referral models now.
5:27
We're running near bound models.
5:28
We're running integration partnerships and all this other stuff that is not
5:32
a reseller, and it's hard to really measure, track and, monitor in, a
5:37
way that sales has it nailed down.
5:38
Everyone's got a different, idea of what it looks like.
5:42
And I think, in going back to the initial, tripod conversat- or
5:46
three-legged conversation is, the reason I set up Arcadia and chose
5:50
that name because it means harmony.
5:52
And what I was trying to do was, like, how do we establish harmony between
5:55
partnership, sales, and marketing?
5:57
So yeah, there are three legs there.
5:59
And really for partnerships to really work, it's got to be, more natively
6:03
and naturally integrated into the work that the sales team is doing
6:06
and the marketing team is doing.
6:07
Most of the time it gets pushed off as, a different silo, or it gets pushed off
6:11
as the, the partner team can go do that.
6:13
But really, when I saw this massive uptick in, in net new revenue and
6:18
influence revenue at Drift, it's because we built this motion that
6:23
natively integrated partner data, strategy, and tactics directly into
6:28
everything the field team was doing.
6:30
And once we did that, over the course of, 18 months from the tech side of the
6:33
house, the tech partners specifically, we saw a 500% increase in revenue.
6:37
It went wild.
6:38
We had 750 partner intro requests that were submitted from our sales team
6:43
to work and talk with our partners.
6:45
We had marketing that had, wasn't doing a whole lot of partner offers at the time,
6:49
like webinars, events, stuff like that.
6:51
Started running a whole partner-led motion through the marketing initiative.
6:54
That was our buddy Justin Keller over there.
6:56
We were working together.
6:57
And we just had a lot of great fun watching this thing take
7:00
off by actually getting it built in and establishing harmony.
7:04
And one of the things I think that's, a limiter for a lot of companies when it
7:07
comes to partnerships is if you, think about it as that third leg and we put
7:11
that relative to inbound and outbound, it makes it sound like it's a lead gen.
7:15
And it can be.
7:16
But what you're describing and what I've seen work elsewhere is, you can get, up to
7:20
40% greater lead velocity and conversion when partners are involved, right?
7:24
100%.
7:24
So it's not just lead source, it's also just integration across
7:29
your customer and prospect base.
7:31
When, any time I do sales enablements and trainings with the sales teams, I have
7:34
this saying that I get them to repeat back to me is that partnerships are a
7:36
bigger, better, faster path to revenue.
7:38
It's fun to say, bigger, better, faster, right?
7:40
And that's what everybody was looking for.
7:41
Every CRO, every sales rep was looking for that bigger,
7:43
better, faster path to revenue.
7:45
And that's where partners come in.
7:46
Bigger deal sizes, faster deal velocity, bigger, better,
7:50
better deal cycles, faster.
7:53
So I wanted you to join Sales Pipeline Radio, not because I really
7:56
wanna talk about partnerships, but I wanted to talk about Arcadia
7:59
and the work you're doing now.
8:00
So you and your wife Sam, co-founded Arcadia Group, I
8:04
don't know, some few years ago.
8:06
And, first of all, let's take a step back from there.
8:11
You moved your family to Montana on purpose.
8:14
And I'm curious, for where you are now, and I think a lot about not just the
8:18
work we do, but the life we create for ourselves and those we care about around
8:22
us, what does a Thursday look like for you that wouldn't have been possible
8:26
if you were doing this in the Valley, in Silicon Valley or somewhere similar?
8:30
Yeah.
8:31
Depends on, the day, really.
8:34
Could it be, look like a, I could get out on the river really easily.
8:37
There's been times where I've checked out of work at about 2:30, 3:00, and
8:40
I can be on the Gallatin River in 15 minutes, and I can have a, line in the
8:44
water in, in, less than 45 door to door.
8:48
Couldn't do that before, right?
8:49
There's been times where I've got a light afternoon of calls, and I'll
8:52
go down to the river and I got a spot where the, where cell service works,
8:55
and I take calls while I'm fishing.
8:57
Not possible.
8:58
I could be in here, like Thursday mornings, I can wake up, the sun comes
9:01
up here about 4:45, which means I can hit a trail at 5:00 AM, get a five, six
9:06
mile run in the morning and be home in time to send the kids off to school.
9:10
And those are the things that, I prioritize in my life.
9:12
It's about how can we enjoy this one shot that we get?
9:16
How can we have an experience?
9:18
And Sam, my wife, is, from Bozeman.
9:20
She brought me out here in 2016 for a few months while we were working remote.
9:25
We spent lots of time hiking in between calls and working and stuff like that.
9:29
And then I just fell in love with it, fell in love with the ability
9:31
to get outside and recreate.
9:33
You and I were just in San Francisco together the other day, and I get to
9:36
go to these big cities and, get, that outta the system, but I get to come
9:40
back home to Montana where it's it's almost immediate, like decompression.
9:45
Yeah.
9:45
Yeah.
9:45
No, that's awesome.
9:46
I'm really happy for you guys and for your family to have that.
9:49
And I think part of, I think part of what I love about Arcadia is, you're bringing
9:55
some of that to leaders and leadership in a retreat format that isn't a conference
9:59
room or boardroom, it's outside.
10:01
Can you tell people like what is it that you have built and why is, why
10:05
from your perspective so special?
10:07
Yeah, so we, built Arcadia shortly after launching the consultancy 'cause I was
10:11
talking about having all these people at the table together, partnerships,
10:15
sales, marketing, CS, product, whoever.
10:18
And so I was like, to get them to the table, like it'd be fun to host
10:20
like some sort of conversation, which turned into let's host an event, right?
10:25
Then we were like, let's do it in Bozeman because nobody ever
10:27
does events in Bozeman, Montana.
10:29
And then if we're gonna do it in Bozeman, Montana, it became
10:31
if you give a mouse a cookie.
10:32
Sam… Like I had an idea, Sam was like, "Yeah, it's a good idea." So I just took
10:37
off with it and I was like, if we're gonna do it in Montana, we're gonna do
10:39
it real Montana style, do it outside.
10:41
We're gonna put everybody in glamping tents, and, we're gonna give them
10:44
an experience they remember because how many conferences do you go
10:47
to where you rarely remember the actual experience of the conference?
10:50
Maybe you remember a couple of conversations, a happy hour or something
10:54
like that, but ours, like we believe that, we believe the, psychology that
10:58
says two and a half hours can begin to rewire the nervous system, and
11:01
most of us live in a sympathetic state of a nervous system where we're just
11:05
always on alert, constant stress.
11:08
And so if you're spending two and a half days outside in nature, what's
11:10
that going to do to your nervous system?
11:13
It's gonna completely reset it, get you back to that parasympathetic,
11:16
state of your nervous system where you're relaxed, you're more
11:18
focused, you're more controlled.
11:20
And I think with right now, like the big thing that I'm looking at as I
11:26
talk to more and more leaders is that there's something wild happening.
11:30
Like on LinkedIn, we're all winning, right?
11:32
We've got better titles.
11:33
We've got more money.
11:34
We've got more visibility, more followers, more meetings, more Slack notifications
11:37
than anyone should ever have to endure in their life, but yet- what's happening?
11:41
I think a lot of people feel disconnected from themselves.
11:44
Like we're not failing.
11:45
We're just disconnected because I think modern leadership rewards output
11:49
while quietly draining the things that actually make somebody feel alive.
11:52
Like we always have to be available.
11:54
We've constantly gotta perform.
11:55
We've gotta respond instantly, consume endlessly, optimize every
11:59
minute, and now we've got AI who's making us do that on steroids, right?
12:02
So we've prioritized performance over presence, and somewhere along
12:06
the way, leadership became theater.
12:08
Everybody's crushing it.
12:09
Meanwhile, marriages are struggling.
12:11
Nobody's sleeping.
12:12
Friendships are at surface level, and there's a loneliness.
12:15
There's an epidemic that comes along with that.
12:17
Stimulation becomes mistaken for, fulfillment Right?
12:21
We're overstimulated, we're under-nourished, we're under-slept, right?
12:25
Brain never gets quiet enough to process, life.
12:28
Like when you lose silence, I think you lose clarity, and that's a lot of like
12:32
why we bring leaders out to Montana.
12:34
We focus less on the content side of the house, because we can get
12:39
content in spades these days.
12:41
We can get that anywhere.
12:41
So we have a couple of sessions in the morning.
12:43
We've got, somebody come and talk go to market this year, do a little workshop.
12:47
We've got people like leadership coaches.
12:49
We've got Lindsay Tjepkema coming to speak about building a brave
12:52
business, brave life, brave soul.
12:54
Sam and I talking about some of the stuff, and other people that
12:57
are talking similar things around some of the stuff that we can help
13:00
leaders rewire while we're outside.
13:02
And the afternoons are built around fly fishing, hiking, yoga, sound baths.
13:07
You're in… You're having lunches at picnic tables outside.
13:10
And so you're constantly in different small groups of people, being able
13:14
to talk, converse, and you're, all in this peer-to-peer knowledge exchange.
13:18
So you have to be a director level or above to attend, so that you're all
13:21
facing somewhat similar challenges in the work that you do, while
13:25
also like getting a chance to just stop, breathe, rewire, refresh.
13:31
The first year, we, we had a very happy, I wouldn't call it accident,
13:36
but, we didn't really know the, cell service was, gonna be crap.
13:39
We didn't know the Wi-Fi didn't really work that well in certain locations.
13:42
And towards the end of it, people were like, "Wow, that
13:44
was actually really nice."
13:46
I didn't have to be on, didn't have to respond to anything.
13:49
They got to be present, which we never get to do.
13:52
Boy, sign me up, man.
13:53
Everything you just described sounds amazing just in general.
13:57
And I can tell you that, as events seem to be coming back in volume
14:01
and frequency, over the last year or so, and that's why I look at the
14:04
calendar like that's gonna continue as companies try to get people together.
14:08
There's the agenda, but then there's the relationships and the conversation
14:12
that are happening amongst people.
14:14
And I think that, to be just as intentional about location and
14:19
environment of that conversation.
14:22
I was at an event a couple weeks ago, Chili Piper put on, and it was,
14:26
outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
14:28
And it was outside quite a bit as well, right?
14:31
And so they could have had the same conference in a Vegas conference room,
14:34
and it would've been very different.
14:36
And so I think there's something about the environment you put people
14:38
in that can actually sometimes help them be more open and vulnerable for
14:42
the conversations that are going to have the lasting impact for them.
14:47
Right before we came on live, you mentioned the modern leadership trap.
14:50
I was thinking about that phrase as you were describing our focus on hustle
14:55
and title and sort of how we show up on LinkedIn versus the, authentic selves
15:01
that, that can really help each other if we're allow it to come through.
15:05
But why don't I let you chat a little further on that
15:07
modern leadership trap idea?
15:10
Yeah, I think it's a lot of the, the old diatribe I just went down there.
15:15
It's we're expected to, always be on, we're expected to always perform, right?
15:21
It's a loneliness that, nobody talks about, right?
15:23
It can be incredibly isolating because we stop being known, we
15:28
start being transactional, right?
15:30
Every conversation becomes tactical.
15:32
Every relationship becomes transactional.
15:33
Every interaction becomes tied to performance.
15:36
I think eventually, leaders are… They, begin to break and buckle
15:41
under the pressure of it, which is why I think we're seeing burnout
15:43
at an alarming rate right now.
15:46
We've confused stimulation for fulfillment, right?
15:49
You got the constant input these days, like LinkedIn, Slack, podcasts.
15:53
Oh, let's go back to LinkedIn and check that again.
15:55
I may have got a notification, right?
15:57
We got email, news notification, and all the things, man, and the brain never
16:01
gets quiet enough to process all this.
16:03
It never gets to, slow down and stop because that's the expectation right now.
16:07
'Cause if you look at some of these companies that are touting these
16:11
high valuations, these high… We're raising millions and millions of
16:15
dollars, but with that comes so much pressure, and I've seen it firsthand.
16:19
Some of these companies I've been around, been involved in, and the leaders
16:22
begin to crack, break, and they're burnt out and they're trying to find
16:28
ways to get back to themself and who they are.
16:33
And they don't know where that happens
16:35
You got, you have to, you have to make it for yourself, right?
16:39
It used to be there were, there were rhythms of life where
16:43
it happened automatically.
16:44
I'm old enough, I remember when you used to have to go to the office,
16:48
and if you left the office, you left your desktop there, and there was
16:50
no, there was no email on your phone.
16:53
You went home and you were home.
16:55
You used to be able, you could get on an airplane, you weren't expected
16:57
to work 'cause there was no Wi-Fi.
16:59
And now fast-forward to today, you go down to, where we were in San Francisco,
17:03
like if you don't have 14 workflows running simultaneously on Claude,
17:07
are you really working hard enough?
17:08
If you don't have to do 16 things overnight, while you, and, checking
17:13
on it right quick before you go to bed and checking on it again when you wake
17:15
up, are you really working hard enough?
17:17
Where does it end?
17:19
And so I think about… I think about as I get older and my kids
17:23
get older, work's important to me.
17:26
I gotta pay the bills, and like the impact I think we can have as
17:29
a business for our employees and customers, like I believe in that.
17:32
Yeah.
17:33
But I also need those cadences of slow.
17:35
I need those cadences of time away because that's where life happens.
17:40
And so I think it's-
17:41
100%
17:41
… it's really interesting to me to think about, like how do we
17:44
bring that back into business?
17:47
How do we create times where we can talk about our business and life- but
17:51
do it while we're fly fishing, right?
17:53
Do it-
17:54
That's right
17:54
… …while we're sitting outside amongst just, nature's beauty.
18:00
I think it's an amazing thing.
18:01
I know we've only got a couple more minutes here before we gotta let you go.
18:03
So you created Arcadia with your wife.
18:07
You co-host a podcast.
18:10
You guys have intentionally blurred work and life, here.
18:14
Yeah.
18:14
How, do you make that work?
18:16
'Cause you've got these business things together, and then you've
18:18
got two kids together, and the how, do you make that work together?
18:23
That's a good question.
18:24
And, most people, especially most couples, think we're absolutely crazy.
18:31
But really, man, we're, having a blast.
18:33
We thoroughly enjoy the time we spend together.
18:36
We… One of the things we really do is we prioritize connection
18:40
and communication over all things.
18:43
Not only connection and communication with each other, but with ourself.
18:47
I think, going back to my leadership trap is, I don't, feel disconnected from the
18:52
work that I do and the life that I live.
18:54
I feel very much, holistic in that approach, and I think Sam does as well,
19:00
simply because we talk about it a lot.
19:02
We, provide space for it a lot.
19:05
One of the things I was thinking about the other day is that,
19:08
humans need white space.
19:10
We just can't always be on.
19:11
And, living in the place that we live, we get access to do a lot
19:14
of that, and we prioritize it.
19:16
I know that it's very important for Sam to have time outside and touch grass.
19:19
I know it's very important for myself to have the same thing.
19:21
And so we, work with each other to prioritize that
19:24
amongst all that we're doing.
19:26
We've got two kids, we understand, like, when each of us needs time,
19:29
needs to do something, and we, work together really well as a team.
19:33
And we generally not only…
19:36
We, definitely certainly care about each other, but we also care about the work
19:39
that we do and the life that we live.
19:40
And we bring that all into, to, into the life that we create
19:44
together, and it's very intentional.
19:45
We talk a lot about it.
19:47
Yeah.
19:47
I was literally just about to say, I, hear a lot of intentionality, right?
19:50
And I think that throughout everything we've talked about, on this episode,
19:54
and I think too often, I think it's easy to just get wrapped up in what's
19:58
next and what's in front of us.
19:59
These guys are doing that, and these guys are… these bros
20:02
on LinkedIn are saying that.
20:03
And just reacting and flowing with what everyone else is saying and doing as
20:06
opposed to saying, "What is right for me?
20:09
What am I gonna prioritize, and how am I intentional- about making that happen?"
20:13
It may not work as exactly as you want all the time, but the more intentional
20:17
you are about it, the more likely you're gonna be able to claim that for
20:20
yourself and for the people around you.
20:22
Absolutely.
20:24
Yeah.
20:24
I don't, feel the need to roll out of bed and look at my phone
20:27
first thing in the morning.
20:28
Actually, I don't let myself do it for the first hour.
20:30
I get up super early.
20:31
I get a cup of coffee.
20:32
I go work out.
20:33
I read a book, and then I get the kids up, and then maybe I'll check
20:36
the phone a little bit later, right?
20:39
I, don't feel like my work has to be my life, and if I don't get to an
20:43
email, then, I know that the economy is not going to collapse because of one,
20:48
message I'm, I didn't get to right away.
20:50
Absolutely.
20:51
I know we gotta wrap up here.
20:53
For people that wanna learn more about you, learn more about
20:55
Arcadia, where can they go?
20:58
I'm on LinkedIn quite a bit.
21:00
You can find me, just Yarby, linkedin.com/in/yarby.
21:04
Jason Yarborough, is there.
21:06
Or you can find us at arcadialeadershipexperience.com if you
21:10
want to learn more about the event.
21:13
We've also started a membership-based community, after all the conversations
21:16
that we had at the live events.
21:18
You can find more about that at Be Arcadia.
21:21
It looks like Bearcadia, but it's actually Be Arcadia, but it's also
21:24
why I chose a bear as the logo, just so I can mess with people that are
21:27
looking at the, domain, It's a bear.
21:30
I assumed that Bozeman, it was intentional, but, that's, that's awesome.
21:35
Thank you so much for being part of this.
21:37
You know-
21:37
Yeah, go ahead.
21:38
Yeah, I was gonna say, what's funny about the bear is like the,
21:40
moment we decided to make the bear a logo, I saw six bear that week.
21:43
That was more in one week than I've seen in my entire time living
21:45
in Montana up to that point, and I think it was a good sign.
21:48
It's definitely a sign.
21:50
All right, buddy.
21:51
Thanks again for doing this.
21:52
Say hi to your lovely wife.
21:54
Thank you everyone for joining us-
21:55
Will do
21:55
… for another episode of Sales Pipeline Radio.
21:57
We'll be back next week.
21:58
More guests, more insights.
21:59
We'll see you then.
21:59
Take care.
21:59
Thanks, y'all.
22:00
See you.