Today’s guest is a seasoned sales leader and mentor who brings a no-fluff approach to doing what's necessary to build teams the right way. He’s spent the last 20 years building & scaling sales organizations as a 6x sales leader and 3x founder. Scott Leese is the CEO and Founder of Scott Leese Consulting, CEO & Co-Founder of Surf and Sales, and Co-Founder of GTM United Community. Scott joins Hosts Justin Gray and Sean Kester to discuss how B2B software vendors can get their referral programs up and running, what you can be doing right now to grow your network, and how to empower your sales team to work with partners.

Takeaways:

• Being transparent about incentives and maintaining open communication lines with partners can alleviate concerns about compensation and foster trust. 
• Engaging with technology partnerships and affiliate programs can open new revenue streams. Being technology agnostic yet having a few preferred partnerships based on reliability and swift payments can optimize benefits.
• Continuously measure the effectiveness of your partnership motion as a whole and how each partner is performing compared to their peers. Focus on those that yield better results and foster a competitive environment among partners to drive more value.
• Ensuring direct communication between partners and sales representatives and integrating the importance of partnerships into the company's culture are vital for the program's success.
• When launching your partner motion, start simple and don’t try to overcomplicate things. Initiating conversations with vendors that you use about potential affiliate programs or partnerships is a critical first step.
• Recognize and reward top-performing partners visibly within the organization to motivate others. High-value deals especially should be incentivized to encourage more referrals.
• Developing your significant professional network is invaluable. Ask the people you interact with regularly if they know anyone who might need your product. Make a habit of growing your LinkedIn connections to expand your network and potential for referrals.

Quote of the Show:

• “I would make network growth a daily KPI for myself” - Scott Leese

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottleese/ 
• Company website: https://www.thescottleese.com/ 
• GTM United Community: https://www.gtmunited.com/reaper 
• Addicted to the Process: https://a.co/d/fFYq0Id 

Shoutouts: 

• Sangria: https://www.sangria.team/

Ways to Tune In:

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5GpM8myxsUinc5bfLIbjJz?si=0af576adfb8e49f8 
• 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