Aaron, Jessie, and Adam—took to the mics to celebrate the small victories that are all too familiar to entrepreneurs and share a collective nod to the sheer resilience required to keep the business flame ablaze.
Each of us sheds light on the delicate balance between innovation and the time-tested strategies that keep us from reinventing the wheel.
We take a candid look at the pitfalls of certification without engagement, and the struggles companies face when grappling with operationalizing processes. We question whether new sales methodologies are genuine game-changers or just shiny new toys for leaders to showcase their influence. Then we pivot to the operational challenges within partnership programs, challenging the idea that complexity equals success and advocate for the power of a standardized yet flexible framework.
Check out Fluincy at www.getfluincy.com
Aaron, Jessie, and Adam—took to the mics to celebrate the small victories that are all too familiar to entrepreneurs and share a collective nod to the sheer resilience required to keep the business flame ablaze.
Each of us sheds light on the delicate balance between innovation and the time-tested strategies that keep us from reinventing the wheel.
We take a candid look at the pitfalls of certification without engagement, and the struggles companies face when grappling with operationalizing processes. We question whether new sales methodologies are genuine game-changers or just shiny new toys for leaders to showcase their influence. Then we pivot to the operational challenges within partnership programs, challenging the idea that complexity equals success and advocate for the power of a standardized yet flexible framework.
Check out Fluincy at www.getfluincy.com
uh, okay, I think this is actually the first recording in the afternoon. Right, this is the first time we've actually like gotten it across the line in the afternoon you're recording now.
Aaron:That's yeah, that's exciting I don't know.
Jessie:I still don't know about this. I think that the weight of Monday, the weight of doing this on a Monday afternoon, there's a lot like. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see how the 13 people who listen to this feel about our Monday afternoon quality. This is Literal Scratch, the podcast where three friends, brought together by partnerships, dig deep into that world with authenticity, vulnerability. Brought together by partnerships, dig deep into that world with authenticity, vulnerability and a touch of humor. We're here to share our experiences, challenges and successes and to help each other grow in the partnership space. Whether you're a seasoned pro in partnerships or just starting out, join us as we navigate the twists and turns of our professional lives, sharing insights and learning from each other along the way. Welcome to Literal Scratch.
Adam:Well, today's gonna be good because I'm fired up. I've been productive today. I think it's all. The quality of what we are able to say at the end of the day on Monday is 100% dependent on how Monday went so far, my Monday going good.
Jessie:I'm glad to hear that your Monday is going swell. Yeah, I think I need to figure out how to celebrate the wins y'all. I got like paid today, which is not like well, fluency, got paid today, jesse, didn't Small, but hey, small wins small, yeah, but like uh, and I saw it and was like, oh, look at that. And then I moved on. Why, what is wrong with me? I?
Adam:I'm just like it's not you, it's. It's like it's the process, the progress. It's hard to celebrate wins when you know you're climbing a mountain.
Jessie:Yeah, but you know, it wasn't a slide backwards today, so that's cool.
Aaron:Yeah, there's a point when you're reaching for the peak still and you're exhausted. So yes, you've made a small step or you reached a plateau, but you're still exhausted. So you can look back and appreciate that you've made it here but also recognize there's still road to climb, you know yeah, it's not like.
Jessie:Is it sisyphean? Is that what it's called? Like this, yeah?
Adam:it's not like entirely always pushing the boulder up sisyphean.
Jessie:So you're always pushing, but sisyphus pushed the boulder up and then, like it always came crashing back down to the bottom and so he like never made any progress. So I feel like you're pushing the boulder up, but like as long as you're still moving up the mountain, like you're in good shape, but I feel like there's very little room for there to be, like the bottom of the mountain is always present, the bottom of the mountain is always present.
Aaron:But isn't there another metaphor about like if you take and you just push yourself against the boulder that you can't move, the boulder may never move, but that doesn't mean you don't get stronger?
Adam:That sounds awful. You're always in contact with the boulder so you don't notice the progress.
Aaron:You push and you push. Maybe that's closer your muscles can get stronger and you develop different strengths, trying like it's resistance exercise.
Jessie:Yeah, okay, we're all done. This is a dead metaphor, anyway.
Aaron:We can hit it one more time.
Jessie:No, I think we're good we got. We actually are going to try this where we have actually something to talk about before Topical podcast almost 40 episodes in we're finally going to try to like have a topical conversation um around uh partnerships, which now you know, two of us are uh operators actually operators, actually to be fair, like I've got a couple of interesting partnerships in the works. That's super fun. Yeah, you do so, three of us Sure.
Adam:You two actually get paid for it though so that's the main thing. Fluency's getting paid, though, so that's all that matters right now. Yeah, sure, yeah, fluency is getting paid, though, so that's all that matters right now.
Jessie:Yeah sure yeah, okay.
Aaron:That's enough of that, let's get into it.
Jessie:Let's totally get into it. Aaron, you brought the topic to the table this week. So bring it on, man.
Aaron:I did. I sent you guys the question Is your partnership really unique? That's the question, Like, what's really unique about your partnerships? And the motivation for me is that I work in ops and I've been having lots of conversations with ops people and recurringly we are all facing the same problems, right? So I'm in the third or fourth company doing operations and a lot of the problems that I'm working on here are the same problems.
Aaron:I've seen other companies and then all the conversations I've had through PL and other connection points is like we're trying to solve this problem and this problem, this problem, and it all goes back to me the very similar, consistent rhythms, which is what's led me to work on a solution around like the Salesforce ecosystem, Right, Like. But the more I think about that, I thought, okay, so on the ops side, I don't know that it's super unique, Like cool, you have a program, you want to run contracts, you have things. So when you get into the programmatic side and I'm getting a small window of that in my current role how unique are your partnerships really Like? How much effort have y'all spent creating unique and special and different solutions that ultimately maybe should have just been solved with the best practice?
Jessie:So are you talking about likeally, is each partnership unique?
Aaron:or are you talking about like the better together story is sort of the same thing I think the better together story, even at, like, a meta level, that's always about adding value for the customer. And then the details of the story are unique, but, like, if you're going to go do partner enablement at a new company, are you going to like, start from the ground? Are unique, but, like, if you're going to go do partner enablement at a new company, are you going to like, start from the ground up and like, like, like, really, are you going to bring all of your experience and be like great, here's strategies that know that work. Here's the content that we need, here's what we need to put in place for the rhythms, like that's. Is that really unique? Are we?
Aaron:And how much conversation do you people to do what you think is right? Like, that's the part I think there is unique partnerships in the value, maybe, but the way you like build and structure. That just seems to be highly repetitive to me at a lot of times. But we're still all arguing about what the best practice is and we all needed ideas and advice and I'm wondering are we spinning our wheels trying to create unique stuff where we could maybe just like stop, simplify and hone in and in the ops space? I think it's true, but I don't know as much about it. Like so, jesse, from your enablement, and then Adam, you on the programmatic side, do you see the similar like, split of like? Yeah, we maybe don't have to be so special all the time.
Adam:We can just go to market. Already I'm in the place where all of that like advanced structure, where everybody, so many people, are everybody's uh at the uh, uh mexican standoff of like who's gonna fire the, the referral over first? I'll give everybody, will give a bunch of one pagers and enablement and training sessions and all other kind of great stuff. But but at the end of the day, it feels like 90% of the partnerships are just waiting for someone to jump at. Who's? Who's bringing the first person into what deal? Who's going to resell it first? Who's going to refer first? Who's going to register the co-sell deal first?
Adam:And so where, where my mind has been at, now that I'm starting to bring on new partners in this new company, where the very first partner call that I had I told them listen, let's skip past all the nonsense I don't have a ton of. I don't have a thousand customers to start introing you. So if we're going to work well together, then let's talk about what we do, what you do specifically, how it aligns to customers and how together we can go after a new market together. You'll put in this effort. I'll put in this effort. I have this. You've got more sales reps, but I've got the ability to create more bespoke marketing for it, or the targeting research for it, or the funding for the ABM campaign whatever it is, really doesn't matter to me as much as do we actually have a clear, shared cadence on how we're going to get after whatever our goal is. That to me matters more than any other, like structural thing Can we, we all have a plan to do the work.
Aaron:Yeah, so, but even in that like if you have an, if you want to go to do a go-to-market plan with a partner a co-sell partner or whatever you want to call it right the campaign approach to do that is pretty consistent. Like great, someone has to pay for things, we need collateral developed, we need to have a timeline, we need a plan. It's like the project itself is like you go to a different company, you have to cross those same hurdles. It's like who's going to do what? Right? So that's what I'm saying is like I think there of what we do that are very rinse and repeat, and maybe where I feel like people and companies are losing value in the partnership game is that when we come into the conversation, we're starting to sort that stuff out and then we have to go convince all these other people that this is the way. Like no, this is the way we have to.
Aaron:That's what I spend a lot of my time doing is like no, I think we're missing these components. We're like, well, what's the value? I'm like, no, I think we're missing these components. We're like, well, what's the value? I'm like please, the values have been doing this for, like, specifically, this type of work for five or six years and just same headaches I've seen everywhere. So can we just? Can we go faster is all I want to do. Jesse, do you see that in enablement too, like bricks and pieces and components are relatively the same and there's unique parts within the partnership, does that what you've seen in enablement?
Jessie:I think that enablement is not a good example of anything efficient. I really would not like Just fired. Yeah, I mean, I had a really awesome opportunity to hang out with some partner managers, tech partner managers at HubSpot, talking about what is partner enablement. One of the questions that came up was he was like clearly you know your stuff, but like, can you give any really good, concrete examples of companies that do this really well? And I'm like, no, no, there aren't really any who do this well because by its very nature, like it does not scale right.
Jessie:Enablement is touch points. It's just touch point after touch point after touch point, and if you can make them highly contextual and relevant, then you've got a leg up. But most of what people are doing is like scheduling like a biweekly or monthly call to be like, hey, I'm still here and that's if you have a great partnership, right. If you have, like, an amazing partnership, you have tons of resources and you can dedicate a person to getting those calls done. But that's literally what a partner manager is doing is just like what's the next activity, what's the? And like? I think Chris Laveau, we posted that like this that partner manager activity is the leading indicator of partner sourced revenue, that if you can track the number of touch points that a partner has with a or, excuse me, a PAM has with a partner, that you can almost guarantee that there's a certain percentage or number of touch points that indicate partner source revenue. It was one of the metrics that he called out. That I thought was really fascinating.
Aaron:And that's more for early stage companies, without I'd say middle of the road?
Jessie:Yeah, like you're looking for predictions of source revenue.
Jessie:Yeah, I mean he's talking about. I mean he ran the partner program at gorgeous, like that's not anything to shake a stick at. That's a pretty large company. I mean it's not huge, it's not Samsara or Atlassian or Apple, but it's definitely like a mid-market but pretty established partner program, large partner program. It would just be an interesting metric to follow. I think, across the board, at any rate, the whole point is is that that enablement by its nature is not necessarily, like good enough. If you create or are trying to create, scale around it Like it just doesn't scale well, and that's what you're talking about is like the repeatable process in order to scale. And I think, like well, you're saying that like you want to wash, rinse, repeat, like the details change between partners, but essentially the operation of the whole thing should be you should be able to rip it out of this partner and put it into this partner, change some of the details and have everything sort of work exactly the same way, right, isn't that what you're saying? Kind?
Aaron:of. I think, like for enablement, what I think about, like if I build down what you said into, like I think, distilling what I'm trying to get at, which is like how special is your partnership, if somebody new to enablement showed up and they're thinking in their head, okay, I want these content pieces, I want them scheduled at this rate, I want to go deliver it this way. Like you sound like you're at a point now professionally where you would say, but that's busy work compared to are you engaging with your partners at the right time, right, and so like you've had the experience to look past those internal, because what I would see is that sometimes people come from the outside and say, well, we want to do this content, the hiring enablement manager who starts to put all that together and it takes time to get to kind of where you're at right In terms of your thoughts and your approach. Cause I would agree with you from what I've seen with enablement Enablement is tough, tough, tough to scale because it does require a lot of content, regular updates on the content scheduled. There's a lot that goes into really building a scaled enablement environment and then it's more like just check boxes that they did the content and they're certified and you still don't know for sure that there's good engagement from that helping with your revenue.
Aaron:Piece right, like I think. I see all that. That's what I'm saying. Like, adam, you go to go ahead, sorry.
Jessie:Yeah, from the enablement perspective. From that point right, like, if you have created for yourself a certification and tiering process, then the enablement becomes self serve. So, yes, do you have to create and update content all the time? Absolutely, and make sure that it's up to date with your product line so that it's certified. But then you have to be offering something so worthwhile that organizations want to self-serve themselves, right, they want to get into the certification so they can get into the tier, so they can get the benefits of being a top tier, which includes then all of these like number one, you have to be a spoke and not a hub or other way around.
Aaron:Hub, not a spoke. Flip it in reverse.
Jessie:You have to be the hub and not a spoke right, so you can't be a touch, a point solution. You have to be a platform in order for this to work, which by nature is enormous.
Aaron:Yeah, right, yeah, salesforce.
Jessie:Like Salesforce or HubSpot or Microsoft or even some of like. There are. There are hubs on hubs like. There are some companies that are big enough to contain their own platform, but you know, shopify is ultimately like Shopify is the the ultimate beneficiary of the Klaviyo ecosystem, right Like. Even though Klaviyo has its own hub, it is still a spoke in the Shopify ecosystem and I guess my whole point in that is that if engaging in enablement other than like to focus on awareness is a big company problem, not a little company problem, and when you're a little company, maybe things don't have to be as operational or reputable as what you're talking about.
Aaron:Okay, I think you're still getting to that point. I'm not sure I'm even listening. Well, I just keep thinking, like we have all this thing, I'll talk with my business partner. We just talk about one of our. One of our ongoing battles is going to be unique, special, different. Well, that's the how our process runs and I've seen all these different sales organizations who are like oh, we have a new CEO, cro, so we're going to adopt a new sales methodology because we think that's going to change seller behavior to get us to more deals. Right, that's like such a common process right now for these big companies and that's like millions of dollars in development and I've been through enough of those to kind of also feel like man, those aren't going to change anything. We're doing it. It's how we make a mark if we're like a new leader. But is that really going to move the needle? Are we really all that special, unique, different? Does our sales process really look that different from company to company? And no, would there you go, adam go yeah, is the like, yeah, like.
Adam:We can argue about, like medic versus bant versus uh, spice versus med, pic versus like whatever else, right, challenger sale versus like. There's a million methodologies out there and it's fine that, like a new CRO comes in and there's, you know, the switch to this new methodology. I don't really think that the methodology I don't think anybody's coming to say like this is the golden methodology. Think that it is a catalyst that can allow that organization to change and get back to some of the basics of like.
Adam:Let's relook at the ICP, the personas, the actual pain points. Let's really look back at the value proposition and the questions that we're asking in discovery Are we actually qualifying on the right criteria? Where are the blockages in our pipeline, maturity or flow? And that the changing of that kind of structure, while maybe somewhat arbitrary, allows for those other deeper questions to ask. Because, at the end of the day, like, yeah, every sales process is different and unique, but it's different and unique on the core value points and messaging to the customer base or through the ecosystem to the customer base, and it's those nuances of the message that matter.
Adam:The major muscle movements of Bant versus Spice versus Medic versus whatever. Yeah, you can map them all to each other and there's very similar commonalities. And yeah, like that can be mapped over to the partner process of how you recruit onboard, certify, train, enable, get a few meals, get more deals, scale in a partner relationship. Like, yeah, those major muscle movements are the same, but if an organization wants to have their unique flair on it because that's how they got internal buy-in and how they align internally, I'm okay.
Aaron:Yeah, I'm okay, I think it's the I think you're speaking to, like cultural adjustment, which I think is important as well. For sure, I just wonder how much time we're spending in meetings discussing things that don't have as much, and that's really the thing, right. And maybe this is coming from the professional space I'm in, or all the conversations I've had over the past several months with different partner leaders who, essentially, are asking me the same thing, but with different language, and then it's like I'm always boiling it down to the same thing of, well, this, this, this and this come before that, and here's the rhythm and here's the model, which is great. It contributes to what I'm building, which is great. But even then, if you look like the programmatic side, like okay, what are the program types?
Aaron:People argue about partner type versus program type. Like I'm kind of at a point now where I'm like I don't think partner type actually matters at all, like your partner type is irrelevant. What matters is the way you're incentivizing engagement. That's a program. So you might be a tech partner and your tech partner program is about the integration and API access and that's all over here on product. But then when they start to refer business, now they're a referral partner. So, yes, they're in the technology cohort. We may have a technology program that gives them access to certain things, but as a referral partner they get 5%, 10%, 15%, or now they develop and mature and do a full resale, like that's kind of how I keep seeing it and it could just be very much my operational mindset, mindset like I'm always having to operationalize these conceptual ideas, and that's where I'm seeing a lot of overlap and consistency, where it's like I don't know, I don't know that all part, I don't know that there's a whole lot of really unique partnership models out there. I think that they're maybe falling into buckets and then it's the partnership itself that adds the unique value.
Aaron:Um, and like cory would be a good example of that, because I like, I want to, I really want to go deep with him at some point on like his, like mass run, because he's got a particular model, a specific approach bring a bunch in, churn them out, find the ones that work and grow from there. Right. So he's, he's got that. Here's my muscle, here's the memory to add them to your point. Here's the muscles, here's the workout. We're going to the same thing. I just I don't know why this is like top of mind for me the past few weeks, cause it's it just feels like all the conversations circling around. We're all trying to answer the same questions and everybody has different answers. But do we need 15 different approaches to partnerships? Do we need 15 different, 30 different program types? You know, like, what are the core rhythms we need to establish to really be successful, and you're building it from scratch right now, adam, which makes it really salient for you.
Jessie:Today's podcast is brought to you by Fluency. Driving referral revenue can be daunting for both partners. Whether you're a tech company struggling to get inbound leads or you're a channel partner struggling to know which partner to refer to, Fluency can help. Fluency helps drive referral revenue through everyday conversations. Using a simple setup and seamless workflow integration, Fluency suggests the right partner for. Thank you at getfluencycom. That's G-E-T-F-L-U-I-N-C-Ycom. Yeah, I think that, like the, your whole point around Corey and and the fact that he has had like a repeatable success at multiple organizations, uh, is proof in the pudding that, like you're that if we could just pick something and ride with it.
Aaron:Yeah.
Jessie:Um and and to the to the point of other um, other GTM activities, right, um, now, do they always require like learning and adjusting? Yeah, like what's working in sales now wasn't maybe necessarily working in 2023. And certainly what was working in 2021 and 2022 did not work in 2023 and is not working now, and so there's a required adjustment. But I think that the underlying function is repeatable enough that people have written thousands and thousands of books about it, right, but the underlying assumption is that sales is essentially the same. There's a process to it that evolves over time, but it's essentially the same Same thing with marketing and demand generation and moving from demand generation into brand and all of those kinds of like marketing motions also have a very like, distinct and repeatable process that you could plug into any business that's starting and it will yield you likely similar results, right, if you do it right and have a good product and partnerships needs to get there, and I think that because it's been scrappy, it's been like this sort of like scrappy, like redheaded stepchild of the GTM world and maybe sometimes not even fully a go to market or understood as a go to market.
Jessie:It's sort of just like sitting out there that all of the folks who've done it for a long time have tried to figure out how to do it in a scrappy way and when you have to do things with like limited resources, everything is a unique unicorn, right, like it's just everybody, and also the emergence of things like Pavilion and PL and sort of these cohorts of folks who have done this stuff before Arcadia coming up right Like there's. We haven't had a real opportunity as professionals to get together and say this is the framework, this is the thing that we're going to be able to go and do repeatedly and move forward. Here's how this works. Right, we're going to be able to go and do repeatedly and move forward.
Aaron:Here's how this works, right.
Jessie:And leave wiggle room for evolution, but being able to say no, like if you're going to run an agency referral program, you use the Snyder method. Right, he's going to love it.
Adam:There's an approach. I gave it a name.
Jessie:Yeah, there's an approach for that. Right, like, if you're going to run a technology integration program, you do that for these specific. If what you want is referral, like you don't want to run an integration program, right, like that's not what that's for, um, and so being able to identify and trying not to do all of them all at once like these are like we're starting to find like little bits of light and little as we sort of move forward as a profession, we're starting to find these like this is a best practice and this is a best practice. And what we really need to do is, you know, for the top 50 of us to sit down in a consortium and say, like this is the best practice and you're starting to see some of that too. Right, so, like Jason and Sam at Arcadia are putting together this like offsite in July, where we're going to literally workshop all of these things and walk away with like some very tactical, like, if you're trying to do this, do these things, if you're trying to do this, do these things.
Jessie:The ELG consortium or whatever that's like Pavilion and Crossbeam, like you're starting to see some of that. I haven't seen anything interesting out of that yet. I don't think there's anything like that from the Nearbound group. But the point is, or whatever the hell PL is up to these days?
Adam:I think they both produced a book. That's what I've seen out of those consortiums and efforts.
Jessie:Yeah for sure. Or their marketing effort. Those are marketing efforts. I don't feel like those are not cohort, like taking the best of the profession and putting our minds together, like I think that just has to be us deciding that's what we're going to do, because everything else is just designed to sell something else, and I think that's never the. Maybe it is the best way, but like I don't know.
Adam:The solution is bigger than one piece of technology. It may be a big piece of it, right, and I'm not saying it's a tear one down versus other and I know you're not doing that either but, like by its nature, it has to be the professionals, yeah, that are bringing it that, with or without any technology, are charged with producing the results. And then we'll bring in technology, we'll bring in processes, we'll bring in automation to get it done better, smarter, faster, but, yes, it's those professionals that have to come up with the answer.
Jessie:Yeah, go ahead.
Aaron:On that front. I also think that's challenging, though, because if you look at some companies, I'm building tech that I would like to be essential tech for partnerships. I think every tech company that's building in the partner tech space would love to be that essential tech for partnerships. The reality and this is a hard pill for me to swallow, given especially what I'm to also acknowledge that I can point to several companies that have done million dollars in revenue managing partnerships and programs on spreadsheets and broken systems, and they're still doing quote really well in the market.
Aaron:It's inside that operational bubble that I live in, where I know the operational costs are hidden in valuation programs. They're only ever visible in CAC and you can manipulate that number in a lot of different ways to look healthy on paper. So we still don't have a good like operational value of companies because we don't care. There's a profit bar, we're crossing the profit bar. We've got our rule of 40. Everybody's happy, everybody's making money, shareholders are winning, so who cares that I have to have 70 people in a foreign country that make a fraction of US wages to be able to run the company? That's irrelevant. At the end of the day, that's the norm, right? So now I'm tangenting, but I get your point. I think you're right A little bit. It's not essential tech.
Jessie:No tech is actually essential tech. So well, I don't think, partner. I think that the only speaking of like hubs, right, hubs and spokes like really, when it comes to GTM tech, like whatever the source of truth is is the only essential tech, right. So it's Salesforce or HubSpot, whatever the decision is.
Jessie:The BI table yeah, yeah, and so, like, if you're not bringing value to that hub, in most cases, like, you'll never become essential tech either. Now, that being said, and it's Salesforce's sales tech, right, it has a marketing component. Nobody likes their marketing cloud, right, like? People will actually buy HubSpot and tie it into Salesforce, which is wild to me. Commonly, yeah, 100%, or they do Marketo or whatever.
Jessie:It is right, and those are essential techs that have become essential techs for marketing crews, but that still have to point towards the source of truth, right, and the source of truth is that sales tech and so partner tech needs and I think you do a great job of this that partner tech also needs to then be able to point to that source of truth as well and not try to become it. And I think that partner tech has always just tried to be, because partnerships was an aisle on an island, that it was a software that operated on that island, and now partnerships has got to, in order to continue to survive, become a GTM motion, and then partner tech then also must be point solutions that aid in allowing for the source of truth in order to become part of the partner tech piece of it, like the partnerships motion Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Aaron:Are you saying, Jessie, that we don't need PRMs?
Jessie:I mean sometimes you do Sometimes you do. We've landed on this a million times. Sometimes you do, but I think a lot of companies can get where they need to go without it and I think, like what you're doing is interesting and super beneficial to allow people to work inside of the place they already work. We've talked about this a bajillion times right Like working being available inside of other people's workflows.
Aaron:Yeah, 100%.
Jessie:I appreciate you saying it though here in a public forum for all 12 to 13 and a half of our listeners If they've made it this far, a half hour into this conversation.
Aaron:Yeah, definitely not. We've got to sort those people out. It's okay, we still love you all, Shouts Antonio. And Kim Kim's out there listening. She's asking me when are you guys going to publish again?
Jessie:Oh, thanks, Kim.
Aaron:It's like eventually.
Jessie:Man, we missed two weeks and people are like person. Person is like shouting, you know, knocking on the door. I know what the heck. Uh, that's good to know. If one person is listening, we're doing a good job. Um shoot, I don't remember what I was saying. Uh, yeah.
Aaron:We wear that out. You guys answered my question. I think it goes back to I think I think you're right. We're working on developing those best practices. I am sensing myself Right. I'm just getting tired of having to solve the same problems over and over and over again. I'm like I just want like literally just do this and then go focus on the interesting parts. Well, that's what I want to justify to whoever.
Jessie:it is like you're the purpose right of what you're doing, whereas if you were in RevOps and you implemented, you know, a forms solution, nobody would question that right. Nobody would question the value of a form solution in lead routing or generation right or whatever you end up using it for. All you would have to say is I'm implementing this in order to do that, and nobody would be like could you please give me your CV so that I understand that there's real value here, particularly at a company as large as the one you're working at. It seems a little absurd, but that's the nature of partnerships, right? It's like there is a constant what are you doing? Why are you spending that money?
Jessie:And what I keep hearing over and over again in conversation after conversation is that people actually see partnerships as wildly expensive. They don't see the savings. Like there's all of this white paper stuff out there and you know Forrester is saying that partnerships is worthwhile and Canalyst is saying partnerships is worthwhile and like all of this bluster from our whole community, but the reality is that CROs are still looking at it and going wait, I got to pay my rep 20% and then I got to pay my partner 15% and I had to include these people and like that's so much more expensive, like on paper, for them it feels. It feels and looks like more expensive because partner ops isn't in place, like there isn't somebody who is advocating for scale and enablement and they're constantly having to be like I'm spending this money, this dollar here, to get seven there.
Aaron:But I think this goes back to another conversation around like hierarchy and Adam, as you build something new and you've got this dual role now right and kind of what you're doing I think is fascinating. I ask partner ops people like where do you sit? My role sits all over the place. It's not uncommon for partner enablement to be in the enablement team with a dotted line to partnership or marketing with a dotted line to partnerships, right. And so the partner org itself and you said it earlier like partnerships is becoming more part of the natural go to market rhythm. So I think as we continue to do that, we will still see partnership structure kind of look all over the place, right.
Aaron:And I don't want to pick on like where I'm at right now either with this, like this is a problem that I have everywhere I go. It's like it's an uphill battle to help anybody understand the systematic needs for partnerships, for partnerships, even partnership professionals. Let me say that as I'm demoing the solution that I've got and things like that, people go okay, well, what's the difference between this? And one was like what's the difference between this and Reveal? I'm like they're completely different platforms, we do completely different things, but Reveal has an attribution component and I have an attribution component. So we have to really delineate, like here's what you're getting. Like here's what you're getting. It's just. It's an interesting uphill battle operationally for me to think, because for me it does feel repetitive.
Aaron:But that's part of where the question came from is, as I talked to more and more people, leaders have rhythms. They want to go execute. They have relationships. They want to go do this piece of it right, like that's why they hire ops people or enablement people, because they they don't. It's not their, it's not their wheelhouse. Right, they might have to do it, but it's not what they want to do. They're willing to solve bandaid problems, to get to the next thing right, to close the deals.
Aaron:Adam, that's probably where you're going to be right. It's like okay, great, we got the relationship, we've got the rhythm. There's going to be some operations we're going to have to figure out. We'll get there right, let's just. And then we'll sort that out as we go, because you've got to justify yourself right, there's this whole thing Everybody's always justifying everybody and that pressure puts a lot of pressure on people to have to get up and go and make quick decisions to get things done. And again proof in it. There's companies that can go and go and go without ever fixing at least the operational end of it. And I wonder about the enablement side. And the programmatic side too is like you know again, why aren't we all spinning our wheels, building this stuff up? Referral programs, referral program right? That's not the interesting part of this conversation. Anyhow, I think we beat that one to death as well, and we did it in 30 minutes, 30, 35-ish or so. I'm sure it's fascinating what you're saying, jesse. I'd love to hear it. I'm sure it's fascinating what you're saying, jesse.
Jessie:I'd love to hear it. I'm muted, so that you weren't hearing me drink. You're welcome. I was saying great. Let's move to gratitudes and move on from this conversation, although it was a delightful conversation and took us into a number of different interesting.
Aaron:You know it's been a couple of weeks.
Jessie:We got to get back on that horse. We do got to get back on the horse.
Aaron:I feel, okay.
Adam:Is the Monday slot going?
Jessie:to work.
Aaron:I think it's going to be okay?
Jessie:Yeah, it depends. It really depends on what comes before three o'clock.
Aaron:That's fair, but I'm a big advocate for like let's just show up with our ugly selves too. I think people would appreciate that, because everybody has to put their entire selves on the shelf.
Jessie:I'm not sure I want other people to see it. Um, I like it yeah, gratitudes, you know what, um, I've got, I've got a few. Uh, look at me, look at me coming to the table with some gratefulness With your own format. I love it, I know. So I was having dinner on last Friday night with my mom. My parents moved here last week. By the way, they're living in their RV in my backyard. Don't worry, everybody, I have a very large backyard. She's not in Arkansas.
Aaron:I don a very large backyard. Um, he's not in Arkansas. Just I don't want to get anybody confused. This is not an Arkansas.
Jessie:Um, it's very uh, clean and professional looking. We did not have a shantytown in our backyard, um, can you imagine anyway? Uh, damn it Okay. So I was having a dinner with uh, with Tony Damn it Okay. So I was having dinner with Tony and with my son and with my mom, and I don't actually talk about the business too much with my family, mostly because it's exhausting.
Jessie:Having to explain this is how I'm emotionally feeling about this thing. That I'm doing is like a very like convoluted I don't. I don't even know how to talk about it now, and so I try not to talk about it with them either. They don't understand, like, why it's so emotional. So, all that being said, I actually did like kind of open up a little bit on Friday about it and what it ended up revealing to me was that last week I had somebody reach out. So shouts to and gratitude to, shannon Plum.
Jessie:Neither of you probably know Shannon. I met Shannon I don't know three weeks ago, four weeks ago, at a women in sales happy hour and she was delightful and we started talking about sales and how tough it's been and she's like it's not just you and she, and then a couple of days, like mid last week, she goes. I was just talking to Alex Buckles and he brought up fluency and I was like I know her and so she messaged me on on LinkedIn and that ended up in like she was like how can I help you? And I'm really struggling with like I don't have a sales process right so I could be talking to a three-person agency one day and then a multi like a public this was last week. I had a call literally in the same day with a three-person agency and then in a publicly traded company with 270 million in ARR, like on the same day, and I still haven't figured out like I guess in total transparency, what the difference in those sales should be Right, and like, truthfully, one person would never be covering those kinds of accounts, those the differentiation in accounts at a company. But you know, founder led sales and you do what you have to, and so I'm just like trying to navigate that. And she was. I was like I don't, I don't, and so I'm just like trying to navigate that. And she was. I was like I don't, I don't, actually I'm not doing it right, I know I'm not doing it right. And so she was like why don't you send me a recording and I'll take a look at it. So I sent her a recording and she came back with all this like really helpful feedback.
Jessie:Also shouts to Steph Reck, who is a Denver Pavilion member and has been a good friend for almost a year now. She is offering similar support and she's essentially like whatever you need and however I can help, and like let me help you with the sales process, aaron and our weekly calls and helping out. Just like listening. I reached out to a guy named Chip, who's a CEO guru and also like an Enneagram guy, which I love, and I was like, can I just grab 30 minutes? And he just listened to me cry this morning and so like, like all of these people, like it's, it's really easy to feel very alone, um, but as I was talking about this shit, I didn't mean to get emotional. Um with my family, I realized how much support I actually have and that felt really good. Hugo, I love it.
Adam:I've got mine is I needed an accountability buddy to get moving on a couple pieces.
Adam:And I've gotten again like a lot of good feedback from other folks.
Adam:And then I know what needs to get done, but I've been distracted from doing it like the lot of good feedback from other folks.
Adam:And then I know what needs to get done, but I've been distracted from from doing it like the core, essential thing. And so, as I was like writing out like what's been going on, that's where I was like, okay, like I need to get through this into the doing, the doing piece that's been avoided for a few days and so reached out to the accountability buddy hey, these are the things that I know I need to do, I need, can we hop on a call so we can refine the next steps and so that way I can commit to you. These are the things that I'm going to get done for this objective and you know had a text, you know, an hour and a half ago with a piece of context that's helpful in doing the thing that I had already committed to. So it's a good having that drumbeat there and knowing the person to reach out to for this specific type of task that I need to get done is great, and so it's super grateful for having a bunch of people like that out there.
Aaron:Well, I'm still. You got it to me, jesse. We've had. I'm still grateful to all the people that are willing to watch a five minute demo. Give me a little bit of encouragement. We had a really good meeting last week with a consultant that might, but likes what we're building, gets it and thinks that, like, maybe there's a place for that in their practice as a hey well, you've got me. This is the first thing we do is we bring this in and then it there's some interesting go-to-market rhythms and some opportunities and things like that, and it's just fun to be in that mode of like we're close, we're launching. Big shout out to my tech partner and my founder because he's helping, he's doing all the build and he's been able to make a lot happen in the past week. So we're a really interesting and fun and close spot and I really deeply appreciate all that.
Aaron:But also we've had a lot happening in the personal side of life Just a lot of unexpected challenges and things that we have to deal with with my kid, and so just having, honestly, a company that is flexible, I'm allowed, I can communicate, tell people what's going on there's no shame in having to miss a meeting or miss work and to just be there for your family. It's just been a long two or three weeks. Right now we deal with some I don't know if you call it crisis, I would call it crisis level situations at home that we're just kind of navigating as parents and people who don't have a lot of support otherwise. It's good to know that I'm getting connected to new people, like a dad who's a little bit further down the road in the journey with me with a similar kid right and he opened his calendar up to be like, hey, just block some time, and I'm happy to listen and so I'm just deeply appreciative of there are just feel I feel completely alone in life where you know, uh, parenting model we had is not, it's just not what we expected with our own parents and all this weight of all these relationships and that, um, some of what and really the thing for me it's it's some of the relationships through partnerships that have turned into kind of more, more than just a professional networking opportunity, right, the true friends and stuff that I have through the past several years of work. I'm just deeply grateful because it's an outlet for me, it's a place I can go and talk about what I do.
Aaron:As I said to your point earlier, I hate, hate when people are like oh, tell me about what you're building, like I literally don't even know where to start with you because it's a Salesforce app. Oh, what's Salesforce? Don't worry about it, it's fine, it's cool. Like I can't even, I don't even know. It's so hard and I and so it's just nice to have place to go and be where people do get it and they see it and you can feel understood, because it helps me with ADHD. It helps me put it down at the end of the day and go be present in what really matters with my family and let that side of myself go a little bit, which is always really hard for me.
Aaron:So I'm grateful, grateful for all those things, specifically the guy that's going to open his calendar I'm not going to throw his name out there because he's not going to listen to this anyway. But then also I want to say I'm grateful to Kim Kim Stagg, who also hassled me about like where's the new episodes, because she actually got some jobs posted, so she's helping me with partner. I was partner. So, in light of all the stuff that's falling out of my own podcast not getting done for two weeks and everything else if I was falling apart. I've got that friend out there who's like look people, there's jobs and I found some stuff and she's helping and it's just great. It's just great to be cared for by good people, that's it.
Jessie:Amazing. End, End Well on that note.
Aaron:That's right, we have to sign off.
Jessie:Scratch off. We have to scratch off, or something.
Aaron:I love you all. That's all folks.
Jessie:I like this format. I like this afternoon was great. The last three weeks has been really rough, so I'm glad that it was a good Monday and that we could finally get an episode across the line. We did it.
Aaron:Back in the saddle. We did it. Y'all have a good week now.
Jessie:Yeah, yeah.
Aaron:Well, I mean, this is always just going to launch on.
Jessie:Yeah, this is always just going to launch, hey listener challenge.
Aaron:Before we scratch out of here. Oh yeah, we got any topics. There's a topic you'd like us to talk about listeners. We're already fishing for topics, please text us, because wouldn't it be more interesting to talk about something somebody says hey I'd love to hear your thoughts on, than for us to pull something out of our own ass? It?
Jessie:always is yeah.
Aaron:That's all. So if one of these 13 have text, just text, shoot us a text. Well, maybe we'll pick your topic next week Amid all the ones we're going to get.
Jessie:I know right, Really looking forward to the half thought that comes through.
Aaron:I hope so.
Jessie:Alright, bye.
Aaron:We're scratching Bye.