Welcome to Season 2 of The GTM Cheat Code Podcast! This season, we’re focusing on Go-To-Market partnerships. We're super excited to have an awesome stable of guests coming onto the show in season two who are experts in partnerships, nearbound, and using those strategies to go-to-market.

Our first guest to explore the world of partnerships with us is a nearbound revenue architect and self-proclaimed Thought-Doer. He is the former Senior Director of Partnerships at Drift, Co-founder of Partner Hacker, and creator of Nearbound Daily, a partnership-focused newsletter that took the GTM space by storm. Jared Fuller is the Chief Revenue & Partner Officer at Reveal, Producer and Co-Host of the Nearbound Podcast, and Author of The Partner Hacker Handbook. Jared’s latest work Nearbound: The Book, will be available on Amazon starting 2/28/2024. Jared joins Co-Hosts Justin Gray and Josh Wagner to share his go-to-market cheat code for partnership success: Strategic Alliances. Jared explains his formula for finding and creating strategic alliances, the three C’s partner leaders need to have, and what strategy actually means for GTM leaders.

Takeaways:

• Strategy is a grossly misused term and to understand Strategic Alliances, we need a definition. Simply put, strategy is a choice. A “Strategy” can answer the following questions: What is your winning aspiration? Where will you play?  How will you win? What must be in place for that to be true? 
• When looking for Strategic Alliance opportunities, first, uncover what is most important to the potential partner and find how you can impact that in some way better than the other partners. Without figuring that out, no Strategic Alliance deal will ever materialize.
• The Formula for Finding a Strategic Alliance: 1. What is most important to the company? (EG: A top-3 metric for the CEO), 2. How do you impact that metric? 3. What does your impact on that metric look like at scale? 4. Who in the company is compensated based on that metric?)
• For example, Jared identified the most important metric to HubSpot was free-to-paid conversions and that the best indicator a customer would convert was if they closed a deal in the CRM. Jared then created a way for PandaDoc users to seamlessly integrate HubSpot data into e-sign forms, which helped those users close more deals. Jared then presented the data he collected from these users to HubSpot’s VP of Product
• Creating a successful partnership requires an entrepreneurial-minded approach as there is no rulebook. The creative solutions needed to build a thriving partnership come from considering the entire business of each party and how to impact what matters most.
• To be successful in a partnership role, you need to have curiosity, courage, and conviction. You need to be curious about the market, customer, and industry. You need the courage to go to your leadership and explain why you want to go all in on a partnership. You need the conviction to be willing to die on that hill, which takes guts and a well-informed decision. 

Quote of the Show:

• “If you're not an entrepreneur, as a partner leader, get out. Go do something else that's easy and that has a rule book.” - Jared Fuller

Links:

• Nearbound.com Website: https://nearbound.com/ 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaredfuller/ 
• Reveal Website: https://reveal.co/ 
• Nearbound Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/nearbound-podcast/id1533135144
• Josh’s Episode of the Nearbound Podcast: https://nearbound.com/resources/057-partnerup
• Strategic Alliances: Partner Up and Play to Win: https://nearbound.com/resources/strategic-alliances-partnerup-and-win/ 
• The Partner Hacker Handbook: https://a.co/d/8bDxZbQ 

Shoutouts: 

• The Sumo Advantage by Bernie Brenner
• Bernie Brenner - Co-Founder of True Car: https://www.linkedin.com/in/berniebrenner/ 
• Brad Coffey - Board Member of Teamwork: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradfordcoffey/ 
• Brian Balfour - Founder & CEO of Reforge: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bbalfour/ 
• David Cancel - Co-Founder & Executive Chairman of Drift: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dcancel/ 
• Elias Torres - Co-Founder of Drift: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eliast/ 
• Bobby Napoltonia: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobby-napiltonia-8b82624/ 
• Andrew Gibson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/agibs1/ 
• Chris Voss - CEO & Founder of The Black Swan Group: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christophervoss/ 
• Never Split The Difference by Chris Voss and Tahl Raz
• Steve Lucas - CEO of Boomi: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nstevenlucas/ 
• Friedrich Hayek - 20th Century Austrian Economist

Ways to Tune In:

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5GpM8myxsUinc5bfLIbjJz 
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-cheat-code/id1692445190 
• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/cb0b3afa-063f-4f3b-96be-b98214c74912 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CheatCodePodcast