Latest / Partnerships Unraveled / 088-Lucia Meyassed- Guide to Effective Partner Communication

Transcript

088-Lucia Meyassed- Guide to Effective Partner Communication · Partnerships Unraveled

• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Welcome back to Partnerships Unraveled, the podcast where we unravel the mysteries of our channel and partnership on a weekly basis.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: My name is Efe and I'll be your host in this episode.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: I'm excited to announce our special guest, Lucia Mayeset.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: How are you doing, Lucia?
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: I'm very good, thank you.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: How are you?
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: I'm doing great.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Thank you for asking and for those who may not be familiar with who you are, lucia, could you give us an introduction?
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Who are you?
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Why should people listen to you?
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: 100%.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: So my name is Lucia.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: I am currently the director of partnerships and alliances for a phenoms organization, have been in the field for quite a few years, and why should people listen to me?
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Well, I think we all have our own perspectives on things right in the partnerships, mainly because it really one side doesn't fit all.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: So if you're looking for a different perspective, then you know this would be the place.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Thank you for that.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: I love it, and that's also the reason why we host this podcast to get people with different perspectives, people who have been on the channel for a long time, and get them to share their experiences, their knowledge, their wisdom with the rest of the community 100%.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: So you, in our previous chat you shared that the traditional way of prospecting for new partners is dead.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Well, let's not call it dead, but you said that it needs to have a change because the partners out there, they're getting prospected too much by vendors and they are starting to drown in vendor communications.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: And also there's a lot of noise in the market.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: A lot of vendors are popping up.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Of noise in the market.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: A lot of vendors are popping up, so the field is getting a little bit crowded.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: How do you think that vendors can differentiate themselves or how do you think prospecting new partners should change?
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: so I think it's, in general, right like we have information, like new messaging, everything coming to us from all different directions, not just at work but personally.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: You know you're being prospected on your personal phone for many different services.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: You know you have all these different social medias and I believe that the last thing that you really want is to just have more of it, mainly when around 90 something percent of it is not relevant to you at all.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: So how the way I look at it is in general in the in prospecting is, first of all, we.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: I think we need to stop rushing into things.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: We need to stop doing things just for the sake of doing it.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: You know, in partnerships or in even in sales, like we all have our targets, you know, sometimes more realistic than other times and we all have our targets, you know, sometimes more realistic than other times, and oftentimes this gives us like um, you know um, it kind of like pushes us to do things like quickly rather than pausing and trying to really build a strategy and trying to really understand why we want to prospect and who do we want to prospect rather than doing it on masses.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: You know you have also different prospecting tools that allow you to do it like almost with no touch.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: You build one message and it goes.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: You know it's blasted everywhere and then you know, maybe I'll be able to get somebody to answer me.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: But we really need to understand that people are just really swamped from all different angles.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: So the way I look at it is always first of all, understand why you want to prospect a company.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Specifically, before even diving to the people right in the company, read their website and try to understand in which geolocations do they operate or where do they focus.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's not even, you know, aligned with your priorities or with the priorities of the company.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Understand exactly.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: You know, for example, in FinOps, if you are offering, you know if your solution is cloud agnostic and they only offer solutions on, let's say, aws, how high priority is it for you?
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Because you know you won't be able to cover all cloud providers.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Really try to understand.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: See who are their customers, what type of challenge you know did they basically solve for the customers?
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Really get to know them.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Take the additional 15, 20 minutes, but that will allow you to establish whether or not you really want to pursue this organization Once you do want to try to talk about the outcome right.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Don't just say about what's our value proposition, like you know the typical high, we can do this and that for you, but really try to understand from their perspective, like, why would they want to work with you?
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: What are they going to gain?
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Every company is really all about, you know, customer retention, increasing the current contract value of their existing customers, bringing new logos and being the leaders on the market, right.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: So try to see how you really play with this.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: And then, when you talk about a person, make sure you're not just targeting someone who works there.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: You really need to understand who would be the right champion for you.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Who are the decision makers?
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Now, not always you have all this information right.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Even when you look at websites, some companies share more than others.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: But you know, when you're in the field for quite some time, you're also, first of all, you have connections, but you're also a member on different forums.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Like, try to really do your homework and then, when you are prospecting the person, try to like, again, put yourself in their shoes.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: You know why should they basically answer specifically to you?
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: How are you going to basically help them get to their personal target?
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: You know, not just personal, but obviously also the company one, but try to really be different.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Just, I'm all about quality rather than quantity, uh, and I think that you know even person who is prospecting would actually do a favor to them.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Because even though you know, rushing to it and sending it all around can show maybe a little bit of success or a quicker, basically, response rate, you know if you send it to masses, but whether anything actually of value will come out of that, probably the chances are a little bit lower.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Now I'm not saying that the prospecting is completely you know, basically you mentioned that but I'm not saying that it's completely not working.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: That's not true.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: It still works.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: But in order to increase the chances, I think one of the ways to do it is to really do it outcome-based and then also use different sort of channels.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: You know, like you have aws, for example, that you can.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: You know so if you do the game night well, you can get referrals from them, connect with people, build relationships, you know, be out there and I just think that that's that's something that you know.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: We see more and more success and obviously conferences as well.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: I fully agree with that, because I have a background in sales.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: So the the automated outreach that you do at scale to masses, I think it never works and I feel like it's it's losing its effect over time.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: I think maybe, maybe a decade ago, maybe that was more useful, but I think that now there's so much noise in the market that it's not working anymore.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: I think maybe a decade ago maybe that was more useful, but I think that now there's so much noise in the market that it's not working anymore.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: I think the same goes in the channel as well.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: If you spend more time prospecting the partner, understanding who they sell to, how do they sell to, what kind of services they offer, and when you go to that partner, instead of talking about why your product is so good or why you're so special, you talk about how it comes into play within their strategy, within their processes, then I think you have a much higher chance of succeeding.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Lucia, I want to jump to another topic.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: You have both experiences in the cybersecurity channel and the FinOps channel.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: You previously led the channel practice some programs at Checkpoint.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: You worked at FinOps organizations like Zesty ScaleOps.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: From my experience, within every vertical, the channel operates very differently.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: There are some nuances and there are differences between how things are being done.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: So, from your experience, how does the FinOps channel differ from the cybersecurity channel.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: So I think there is a very big difference, right, as you mentioned, every sector has a different.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Basically, you know it's slightly different but unlike cybersecurity, which is a very mature market, you know it's been around for many, many years.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: You know Phenoms is something that is still evolving.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: People talk about it more and more over the last four years, it's more of a focus, but it's still not something that would be completely mature.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: And also the changes in Phenoms are much more dynamic, I would say, because it's really just evolving, right.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: But except of that, like when you, when you think about it on the, on the levels of a company no matter whether you are five employees, 10, 20, 30, doesn't really matter you understand what cybersecurity, you understand that you need to have it.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: If you're a small company, maybe you don't have the top, all the layers, but you do have some sort of cybersecurity already in place.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: You know that you need to hire a specific person for it, right, eventually, and it's really just somewhere in the core of like understanding.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: It's the same thing, like you understand that you will need a CRM if you are going to sell, right, but eventually.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: But Phenoms is just not there yet.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: So'm not saying, you know, finans is very important, but it's just not at the core level of the companies.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: It's not something that when you, when you establish a company, it's not something that you think about.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: You know, it's not something because first, you need to get there right to a certain scale in order to be have the headaches of, you know, saving money or utilizing the resources better, and so on.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: So obviously that's a very, very big difference.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Also, when you are selling because cybersecurity, you know, is something that companies have budgets for, usually dedicated when you mention cybersecurity, everybody can imagine, they know what to imagine, they know what it is, even if they don't understand all the layers.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: But when you mention Finans, it's very different.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: While many companies already have DevOps teams and FinOps specialists, still, because it's such a new market and so many new FinOps tools are basically being created on, I would say, a monthly basis, created like on, I would say, monthly basis oftentimes customers don't even know what's the actual offering, they don't know what to exactly look for, they don't know what it can actually do, and also they know that it's not such a critical thing like a cybersecurity, meaning, if you don't have cybersecurity in place.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: You know what can happen.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: You know that there can be a hacker, you can lose the data.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: It can impact your customers.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: You know that there can be a hacker, you can lose the data, it can impact your customers.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: You know that those things are very crucial and critical.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: But when you don't have a Phenops, you probably do a lot of manual work.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: You also you know you probably pay more than what you need to do and things like that, but again, it's just not yet in the maturity or it's not yet incorporated into the core basis of things that the companies think about, that they need at the beginning.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Now, obviously, that also reflects.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: It's basically also reflecting in the whole power game or in the whole way of how you do business with your channels.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Because you know, I from my experience and I believe that in cybersecurity it's it's just the flow of partnerships and the vendor management and the customer is just already so well established and it just flows very well.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: You know, many cyber companies are primarily or basically focus on the channels, but again, finops is just not yet there in terms of the mature level right of the actual field.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: It may get there.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: It will probably take a few more years.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it's just.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: I would say it's very different from many different aspects.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's interesting.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: So what I would like to understand is like having worked in the cybersecurity space and also in the FinOps space.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: So you mentioned that FinOps is a much less mature product category.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: How does this change the way you go to market through the channel?
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: How does this change, for example, working with partners or recruiting new partners?
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: What has been your experience?
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: so, first of all, it also depends on which type of partners.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: If you go to the partners that are native phenops partners, right, that they have built all the practice around basically offering FinOps services, there also you can have two levels.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: Some partners are basically doing what other tools can do automatically, but they just do it manually.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: So they might be reluctant on, you know, having a relationship with the vendor because it would be like taking their job away.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Not everybody, some of them will see it as an opportunity.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: They can just automate things and basically still, you know, put it under their portfolio of offerings.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: But when we talk about the actual, you know, go-to-market with the partners, if you are reaching out to partners who are not native in the FinOps, you need to help them build a FinOps practice around it, because oftentimes they will not even know exactly, you know, from which directions to go and also they will not necessarily know how to position it in front of the customers.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: So the enablement path there it's much longer.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: It's never ending really because, as you know, there are also all the time new salespeople, delivery people and things like that.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: So it's just a very way of very different way of approaching it.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: You will have to invest so much more effort, so much more energy, more materials in order to basically gain something back than what it would be if you were in cyber.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: It's just, you know, it's just a really a lot of enablement on that end yeah, from what I understand, I think you need to drive a lot of uh education and enablement to the partners to help them understand what you're selling, how they can sell, how they can use it, how it differentiates from the current way their customers may be working.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: So I also think that maybe within that space, the channel marketing role comes into play as well to uh, you know, drive that content, drive that message to the market and to the partners.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: In our previous.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: Just one last thing that also, if you think about it from the partner's perspective, if you're a partner who, for example, an MSP and wants to offer services in different fields, right, cyber security is the field that he will definitely offer services in because it's a must, it's really, you know, you have to have it, whereas Phenops, as I mentioned, you know Phenops is at this stage, even though people talk about it more and more and more and more customers, you know, are attracted to it and there is so much money in the market.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Not everybody will put it at the same priority level, you know, as a cyber or other fields.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I completely understand you.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: In our previous chat, lucia, you shared an interesting concept with me a special type of partnerships.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: I think you call it a soft partnership.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: Would you please explain it to us?
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: So I don't actually know if this is like, if this is the name that everybody would use, but I'll give you a little bit of more background on it.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: So, first of all, in Phenom, as I mentioned, it's ever-evolving, right.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: You have all the time new tools coming out, and what we've realized was that, first of all, it's really packed like not necessarily in like, you know, kubernetes or EC2 or compute, it doesn't really matter, but it's a lot of tools out there.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: But we also noticed that some of our partners are selling us, together with other, because of Phenom's, basically tools really covering just different aspects, you know, storage and things like that.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: And so I reached out to those other vendors and we had a conversation and we basically talk about how we can leverage this and how we can really build something together that we will benefit from, but also the partners and also the customers at the end, right, because they will have like a one-stop shop through one partner.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: They will be able to be covered on all different aspects, basically.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: So we call it a soft partnership, because what we basically decided is that, first of all, we are not binded to do anything, but we do share the same value, we do see the same vision that what we would like to actually achieve.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: The idea would be that we would first of all do account mapping of partners together so we would be able to basically see with which partners we already work together, which ones we are not yet working together, so that we'll be able to make the mutual introductions and basically benefit from it.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Right, the partner should be basically open to it because he will get additional tool and he knows that those two or three tools already work well together.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: We've also kind of like built this how to position us together.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: We shared information on what's our IECP together so that we all will know exactly.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: You know what works for whom and where.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: You know where things wouldn't work the way that we would imagine.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Then we would also obviously share some prospect lists in terms of the direct you know um outrage and customers to see exactly what we can do, but also in terms of, like cloud providers, like aws, the actual value there would be.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: You know, if you give us one referral, it potentially can translate to three deals, which mean three deals through aws marketplace.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: You know which means.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Three deals through AWS Marketplace.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: You know which means basically additional.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: The customer just gets with one kind of like introduction.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: You know from you like additional, basically benefits, happy customer right, and so like.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, so that's really it.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: It's not binding.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: Nobody will, you know, be angry if things don't work out the way that you know that we would want to.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: But at the end, I think it really is important that we find the right people from those vendors who are willing to give it a time.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: We don't have targets on it, it's really just like a handshake deal.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: We do like the positioning also together, because it's ultimately the strong phenobs package that, also in terms of the competitors, it's supposed to be.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: You know, like, hey, we are like this solid rock and we can cover the customer really together.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: And also customer like, if you are, imagine if you are being approached and you know, either you can choose to go through three different channels to get three different tools, and now you have one channel who can basically give it all to you.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: You'll probably decide to go, even if just for the ease of use, for the one who is going to be able to cover you from all the different aspects.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this is a very exciting space because there are these kind of tools, maybe space because now there are these kind of tools maybe.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: So the msbs offers and within their, within the services they offer, they typically integrate or they bring together a bunch of different solutions from different vendors and they position that that to the customer I think that also, there's a lot of value in those vendors coming together and understanding why.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: How are we working well together, what are the integrations that we can offer, how we can go to market.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: It could be sales marketing and having those conversations and then making it clear.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of value in there because, at the end of the day, the end customer is not really looking to buy products, they're looking to buy solutions.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: So when you have those conversations and when you make that very clear and concise, so when you have those conversations and when you make that very clear and concise what you're offering and work together with other specialist tools, other specialist vendors and creating that best of both worlds solutions for the customer, I think that there's a lot of value there and I think that the vendors who are going to master this is going to start winning and that's the shift.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: That, that's the theory that I have.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of value in here.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: I think you're 100% right.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: It's.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: It's all connected with the prospecting, with the way where we are going right.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: So, uh, I definitely see a value in it and people need to start.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: You know, um, that they are not, but people need to really start to try to look at things more holistically and see, eventually, we all want to have happy customers.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: We all want to have happy partners.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: So let's just put our heads and minds together and think how we can do it together and put our strengths basically into one basket and really approach it from that direction.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, sometimes the problem that I see in this space is that, for example, so you call the soft partnership, but I would maybe also put this in the category of some sort of an alliance.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: Would you not agree with that?
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: Alliance I think it is.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: It could be considered as an alliance 100 could be, could be as an alliance.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Uh, a hundred percent Could be as an alliance.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Again, to me, alliance and soft partnership is kind of very, you know, like a synonym, I guess.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Just for me, having the distinction between cloud alliances and partnerships, I'd rather put it under, you know, the soft partnership roof.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: But, yeah, some people could have also say tech partnership, even though there is no technical, you know, integration or nothing like that.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Um, that's why I mentioned it's.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: It's a term that I used.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: It works for me.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: It seems very natural for me to say that, uh, because eventually, in actual channel or in actual partnerships, you do have some sort of an expectation in terms of the tangible values.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Right, you do expect them to bring in this amount of business or that amount of new logos and things like that, what are here.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: It's very much like.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: Let's try it out.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: I'm glad we see the same picture, I'm glad we look at it, you know, in the same way.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: But let's just not, you know, commit to numbers that we mind and either be stressed in reaching out or see that we won't be able to reach it and then we'll just completely step away.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Let's just see how much we can do, because eventually we are all just you know.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: Either ICs or like have only a few people on the team and you just you know, at first you always have the priorities of the company and then this is something that we want to do with our spare time yeah, I, I really like that because I think a lot of partnerships start with a lot of excitement and then once you are not able to see the numbers, then that excitement fades away.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: I think it's always good to start maybe small, take little steps and then, along the way, maybe start adding those targets when things start becoming a little bit more mature.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: So, lucia, we are all familiar with the 80-20 rule and we often discuss it on this podcast and also in our previous chat.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: We discussed how the partnership space is changing very fast and it's very unpredictable.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: So, for example, a partner who generates the most in one quarter can suffer miserably in the next quarter.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: So what is your take on the unpredictable nature of partnerships?
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: And maybe how does this influence the way you make decisions and you structure your partnerships and your channel?
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Very good question.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: So, first of all, I think that you know, it's not just the partnerships and businesses that are changing, because you know, really like the speed that we work at today, it's not something that has ever been done in the past.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: Right, in no age have ever people worked so fast, and not just work, but also, like businesses acquire other businesses, then businesses close, then businesses change name, then pivot, then like so many things are happening, and on top of that we also have more and more millennials basically working in companies on a higher positions, which obviously also changes a lot of those.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: You know things or influence them, because you know millennials themselves.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Basically, I feel like it's a generation that, first of all, we are also post COVID, right, when everybody just became you know the world, the culture, work ethics, everything changed.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: But I see, I think that basically the balance between work and life, or the line, is blurred Because because of the way we live, we basically work 24, 7, right, everybody who is in the tech space, and that way we can see that the work life is really interconnected.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: It's not just bringing, you know, work home, but it's also bringing home back to work, and we can see that also on linkedin right, we see more and more personal posts and I think it's amazing.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: I think it's really great, and the reason why I think it is because it really you know, we are one person but we are basically.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: You know we have those two parts work and basically home life that they need to be basically, you know, placed together on the table.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: So, in terms of the 80-20 rule and how everything is changing and how to prepare for it, I think it's part of our culture, of how we basically work.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: We want to get connected to people.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: We don't just want to jump on a business call and talk only about business.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Yes, it's great to get to the bottom line and to talk business stuff, but take the additional five minutes at the beginning of the call or at the end of the call, or 10 minutes.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Get to know the person on the other side.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Once you have a relationship that is working or you're just starting to basically onboard them and work it through, get to know them.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Because the more you connect with a person, you feel also more um, how would I say?
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: You also want to make sure that the relationship succeeds, you believe in it more and you want to give to it more.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: And then imagine if you are on just a business call and somebody knows that the company is going through some internal changes that you as a partner manager, need to be aware of in order to plan your next couple of quarters, but also in order to basically communicate it internally to your manager or to the CEO, you know, so that you can align the expectations.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: If you don't know that information, there's going to be a big misalignment.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: And then you can just wonder like, oh, why, you know, my champion is not telling me, or why we see that there is a decline.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: But if you have that connection, the person is going to feel much more comfortable with sharing with you such things, and not only comfortable.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: They will feel in a certain way obliged, you know, to basically tell you that because they, they, you matter for them, they respect you, they care about you as well, because you've established something so they can tell, you know about things that are, you know, heads up.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: We are going, we were just acquired, we probably won't be, you know, overused for the next three quarters until things settle, um, or even if the champion is about to leave their job.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: You know, make sure we have additional champion for you like.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: It's also not going to work 100% and in all cases right, but I'm just saying that it's not just anymore about businesses changing but it's also about the people that are working for companies and in which positions, and we need to understand that it has a cultural or it basically has an impact overall and generation after generation.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: We want to be more connected to people Because, again, we work all the time, we sit on the computers all the time.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: This is our life, right.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: Then we come home and then many people are still.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: You know, many people are like I don't do it, but we do scroll right on our screens, we watch TV and the personal connection is not like we are able to be outside and meet new friends and meet people all the time.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: So I feel like the connection needs to be established there and then eventually, once you know more, you can use it for your business.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Basically predictions, you are able to communicate it really internally and also build your overall plan.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: You know you will know, okay.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: So if I know the two of my strongest partners are going through something and they are not going to be delivering over the next two, three quarters, I need to hire, I need to work on onboarding additional you know, six, five partners this quarter so that I'll be able to cover the gaps, or not just to cover.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: I'll be able to grow, you know, throughout, basically throughout the year.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: So that's really the one aspect.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: The other aspect is to also make sure that we internally enable, you know, companies on the fact that the 80-20 rule exists and that the partnerships are constantly changing and that we can't put all eggs into one basket and that the management of the company needs to understand that.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: You know, you just can't predict, it's just not predictable, and no matter how well you do your job, sometimes things will just be completely different to what you expected.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: You know, in a quarter and then, like the next quarter, things can look again very different.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: So it's just you know, really being able to live it for a couple of years now.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: It's just the way it is.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: We just have to do our best, and you know, and try to change all the time as well I want to come back to the first point you made, because I think that was such a beautiful message and it almost made me cry, because I think there's a lot of value in there.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: Uh, I think you you touched on a really important point, especially.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: I think it's not only of value in there.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: I think you touched on a really important point especially I think it's not only in partnerships.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: I think, overall, that we do seek more connections and I think that it is important that we take the time to get to know the person on the other side of the screen.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: For example, we do these podcast episodes a lot of time online.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: We have a studio here, but we invite people all around the world and it's not the same as having that person seeing them in person, but I think it's a bit more challenging to have that connection over the screen.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: But I think that there's something really beautiful and wholesome within there.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: I think that it's also something that I'm trying to get better at as well, especially within partnerships.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: I think that this is also something that, like, I'm trying to get better at as well, especially within partnerships.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: I think, in typical from my experience, from my experience, partnership people who, the people who work in the space are already a little bit more inclined to create that personal connection with people and have tendency to invest in relationships.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: I think that's very beautiful, but I think that was a really good message for all of our listeners.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: So maybe, maybe a takeaway is that for your next goal.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: Maybe take that five minutes at the end or at the end of your call.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: It's all about a relationship building, right, and we all have to like.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: It's sometimes really hard because you know we are all.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: You know we have all our targets, we want to get there.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: And then you get to the call.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: You have, you know, 100 action items to get out.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: Let's just stop.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Firstly, you know we are human beings.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: I consider it really amazing when I hop on a call with a partner and the partner remembers a thing that they asked me about, you know, like whether it's something from a personal life or whether it's a book that we talked about.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: It's just.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: It really gives you the additional motivation and drive that you need in order for the things to you know really click.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: So I'm a big believer of it.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: I love it Well, Lucia.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: So we always like to ask our guests to invite the next guest on the podcast.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: So maybe someone you have a special connection with, someone who is knowledge in the channel, in the partnership space, who do you think would be a great guest on the podcast?
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: So I don't want to call out a name without actually me telling the people that I'm going to mention their name, but I can definitely share with you privately and except of a person.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: I can tell you a topic of my interest as well, because over the past couple of months we see more and more chief partnership officers, or the role, basically getting a spotlight, which I don't think it existed a year ago or two years ago, I guess, to understand the dynamics of how really the fact that they were they got this title of basically C-level big partnership.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: How did it shift or help them to achieve their goals?
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Because oftentimes in organizations you know, partnership will sit under the CRO or sales, not oftentimes they will report directly to CEO, which obviously brings a lot of challenges.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: You know from it and I'm not going to even touch on that.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: But what are the fact that they?
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: You know there is now this new role, whether that has impacted any of the challenges you know, with the direct sales or with the priorities or partnerships.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: People also oftentimes are very understaffed and you do like everything you do marketing, sales, sales, partnership, you know everything.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: So I guess I would just love to understand that perspective yeah, I think.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: First of all, thanks for calling out, because I think this is a very interesting topic that we didn't address in this podcast yet.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: I can think of a few people who would be amazing guests to talk about this.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: I think like asher matthew founder of partnership leaders jay mcbain or chip rogers I think those people would be amazing.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: But thanks for calling out.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: We will definitely.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: We'll definitely make an episode about that.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Thanks for your suggestion of course happy to be here all right, thank you for.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: Thank you everyone for tuning in.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: Uh, for those everyone who want to connect with lucia, I will make sure to put her her LinkedIn in the description and see you in the next episode.