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Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Podcast.

In this episode, Vince Menzione and Reis Barrie, CEO of Carve Partners, dive deep into the 12 most common pitfalls that can derail a successful Microsoft partnership. They discuss the misconception that Microsoft will simply send leads, the critical need for a dedicated partnership owner, and why a misalignment in sales compensation can be a recipe for disaster. The conversation also covers the importance of speaking Microsoft’s language, the proper way to leverage certifications and incentives, and the necessity of having a one-page plan. This is a must-listen for any organization looking to maximize its partnership with Microsoft by avoiding the mistakes that lead to stagnant growth and missed opportunities.

If you’re ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community. At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins.

Key Takeaways:

If you’re ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community. At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins.

As we enter the last four months of the calendar year, you are probably asking yourself, “What events should I attend this fall and why?”

Many Partners and Leaders are trying to determine if the big events make the most sense and what they will learn. Many of these events are big and unyieldy, and while you may bump into some friends, you need to really ask yourself if they will help you achieve your greatest results – as a leader, as an organization, or as a partner.

Our attendees tell us they get more accomplished in two full days than in most of the year at our events – they learn from Hyperscaler Leaders, Top Award Winning Partners, and the Masters. Learn from the best, meet the best, grow your business faster and further.

An Ultimate Partner LIVE is like YOUR Masterclass. We begin with a view of “Where We Are Today” as the tectonic shifts are happening faster than ever before. Our first day sessions explore the advances in AI, Hyperscaler Growth, Marketplaces, Co-Selling, Ecosystem Led Growth, and more. These sessions are led from the leaders driving the discussions at Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, AvePoint Veeam Software, Carahsoft, Elastic and more.

On Day Two, an Industry Analyst will bring it all together as our industry experts help you plot the future course – applying the learnings to maximize results.

And, you’ll learn more from the Partner Technology firms, Partner Consultants, and others helping partners like you achieve more and walk away with over a million dollars worth of insights, learnings, and practical advice to apply to your business. In fact, we will have over 10 unique workshops at the fall event alone.

You will be in the room with other executives like you, or partner leaders looking to get to that level. Join us for a unique welcome reception and – if you’re fortunate – you’ll be joining our Executive Dinner. This event will feel more intimate than past Ultimate Partner LIVE settings. You’ll love the experience.

I look forward to hosting YOU this fall!

Click HERE while time still lasts.

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Transcript::

REIS BARRIE AUDIO PODCAST

[00:00:00] Reis Barrie: I’ve seen this really interesting trend, frankly, of lately, of people not only just not, not only going net neutral, but going. Uh, incentivizing it. Yeah. And so, absolutely. I think, you know, we’ve all been surrounded by a lot of these stats and, and facts about what partnerships drive, whether it’s, uh, access to more budget, access to more customers, uh, faster sales cycles, bigger deal sizes, all of these things.

[00:00:23] Reis Barrie: Like, you hear these, you hear these outputs, and you start to think like, well, why wouldn’t I incentivize something that gives me that?

[00:00:32] Vince Menzione: Welcome to The Ultimate Guide to Partnering. I’m Vince Menzi, your host, and I’m thrilled to welcome a great friend and an expert in the world of partnering to this podcast. Reese Barry is the CEO of Carve Partners. He’s been on stage here in in Boca Raton at our events, and he’s gonna be joining us soon at the next Ultimate Partner Alive Reese.

[00:00:55] Vince Menzione: Welcome to the podcast.

[00:00:56] Reis Barrie: Yeah, it’s always great to be here. It’s so good to have you back. Super excited to, to, frankly, you mentioned the event. I’m, I’m stoked to be there. Uh, I can’t wait.

[00:01:03] Vince Menzione: Yeah, so, and you’ve been supporting us since day one? Yeah. In fact, from the very, I think this is number seven. On the events that we’re doing now.

[00:01:10] Vince Menzione: Yeah. So incredible time. Yeah. Great to have you back. Yeah, great to have you back here in the studio. You’ve been here a few times. This is not, you’re a familiar face here to our, i, i viewers, listeners.

[00:01:19] Reis Barrie: I am. Yeah. It’s great to be here, frankly. Yeah. It’s, it’s, yeah. Awesome studio. I always, I always love coming down here.

[00:01:25] Reis Barrie: It’s, uh. Pretty quick drive for me too, so, well,

[00:01:27] Vince Menzione: we’re gonna have some more going on. We’ll talk about that at the end. We’ve got some more things coming up in January here in the studio. We’re gonna share with you all soon. But today we’ve got a really incredible topic. You’ve been doing quite a bit of posting lately, by the way, on your own.

[00:01:41] Vince Menzione: I

[00:01:41] Reis Barrie: have been, yeah. Some really great content. I made some commitments to myself and so we’re, uh, we’re, we’re full steam ahead. I love it. Uh, sharing as many insights as we can, getting as much knowledge of the ecosystem as we can. Yeah. So it’s, uh, yeah, I’m super excited

[00:01:53] Vince Menzione: and you’ve got a tremendous amount of insight.

[00:01:55] Vince Menzione: You work with some of the top bias vs some of the top SDCs, as we call them now, software development corporations. And today we’re gonna spend some time talking about, we, we’ve always talked about like what it takes to be the most successful. Mm-hmm. But today we’re gonna roll over on that and say. About pitfalls.

[00:02:12] Vince Menzione: We’re gonna talk about you, you call it the 12 pitfalls to successfully partnering with Microsoft.

[00:02:18] Reis Barrie: Yeah.

[00:02:19] Vince Menzione: And so I thought we’d start here, right? This is a, a set of 12. We’ll take, we’ll take our listeners through this massive opportunity for them to drive the greatest results. So the first one you have is Microsoft sending us leads.

[00:02:32] Vince Menzione: And this is something I’ve heard many times mm-hmm. From organizations, they kind of expect it. But why don’t you take us through why, why that’s a pitfall and why organizations misunderstand working with Microsoft.

[00:02:44] Reis Barrie: Yeah, a hundred percent. So, and, and even just to back, back up a like a moment from there is I would say, people always ask me what to do and.

[00:02:55] Reis Barrie: It’s just as easy if not easier to say like, oh, just don’t do these things. Yeah. And you’ll naturally gravitate towards the things you should be doing. I love it. I love it. And so I, the concept of, of what not to do is frankly, something that I, I resonates with me. I’m probably learning more, more what not to do than what to do.

[00:03:11] Reis Barrie: Um, and so, yeah, starting with number, like starting with the first one you mentioned, just like that, that leads conversation. And so, oh man, this is. By far the most common conversation I have when I’m first yes. Jumping in or starting with a, starting with a particular someone on the, like who has dealt with Microsoft less or they’re earlier in kind of their partnership journey.

[00:03:31] Reis Barrie: And it’s often this, this, uh, resetting of the frame of like, well, what’s the value of a Microsoft partnership? And they went into it for whatever reason, with the assumption of, Hey, I’m gonna, I’m gonna list on marketplace. And all of a sudden, you know, this windfall of, of deals is gonna, is gonna, is gonna come towards me.

[00:03:50] Reis Barrie: Um, and most of these times these people I’m talking to are like maybe recently or part of I v’s. Success, uh, leveraging some of the great value, they can’t get there. And they got published, they got transactable and they kind of just like. I’d sit around and like, wait. Um, so bad. Yeah. It’s un it’s unfortunate, but we reset that frame and, and, and it’s not about, um, it’s not about getting leads on the front end.

[00:04:15] Reis Barrie: I’m not saying you never get leads ’cause you, you actually, once you start, start the flywheel and start the momentum, like you do actually get these things. Um, but it’s not where you start. It’s like it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a, that’s a very mature, um, part of the partnership. And so I often just, um. Talk about, hey, we have to be proactive.

[00:04:34] Reis Barrie: So we list doesn’t mean anything’s gonna happen from that listing. We have to start being proactive in terms of what we’re actually doing. Um, and then just resetting the frame of Microsoft is an amplifier, like they are, you know. I use a lot of different metaphors in this one ’cause, try to make it relatable, but like we’re even us sitting here today, we have microphones, right?

[00:04:54] Reis Barrie: Yes. If I don’t talk into the microphone, nothing, nothing actually happens, right? That’s right. The Microsoft, so if, if Microsoft is the amplifier or the microphone in this case, like you have to put, put stuff into it to amplify our voice. Yep. Right? And so Microsoft, that’s a, it’s a great analogy because what we put into Microsoft, um, comes out into the ecosystem amplified.

[00:05:15] Reis Barrie: Um, and so. Um, it’s really on that front end. It’s about putting, putting things in, showing that you can win, showing the value of, of you as a company. Um. Starting to partake in different programs and different benefits of being a, a partner that now that you’re transactable, um, and then you start to see a lot of the, kind of the flywheel start to spin and then more mature stages, you start to do like more fun things with account planning and lead,

[00:05:42] Vince Menzione: lead gen.

[00:05:42] Vince Menzione: I also think it’s like a lack of understanding around how Microsoft works, right? Yeah. I had there, somebody posted something on LinkedIn about Microsoft not giving. Their partner’s leads mm-hmm. A while ago and I was thinking about it and saying that’s not, that’s not the way they’re wired as an organization.

[00:05:57] Vince Menzione: Yeah. As well. They co-selling is really, we’ll talk more about the totally opportunities around co-selling, but they’re not just flipping you leads. Mm-hmm. It’s not like a lot of companies treat. Partners like the channel. Mm-hmm. And they push things out their way. Yeah. And that’s not near, that’s not the way Microsoft operates.

[00:06:14] Vince Menzione: I think it’s understanding like the core of how Microsoft sales organization operates as well, don’t you?

[00:06:20] Reis Barrie: Yeah. A hundred. And even in partnerships in general, like the, the concept of like, I’m a partner, so I get leads, is like, it’s a very shallow partnership if like Exactly. If that’s the, if that’s the expectation.

[00:06:30] Reis Barrie: Um. It’s like that’s a, it’s a, it’s an output, but it’s, it’s, it’s one of the many, many, many outputs, frankly. Exactly.

[00:06:37] Vince Menzione: Um, totally. And it’s something that’s, yeah, I’ve, I’ve heard it many times. I’ve heard it up being on the inside. Mm-hmm. I’ve heard working with organizations when I was consulting with them as well.

[00:06:47] Vince Menzione: Uh, it just seems, it just seems to be the biggest, one of the biggest misnomers there. A hundred percent. But I think one of the things too is, let’s talk about another pitfall is you often say partners succeed. They don’t succeed without a clear owner. Yeah. And this is another area too, where people just like, like, okay, we have a partnership with Microsoft, but nobody’s owning it.

[00:07:08] Vince Menzione: Who should own the Microsoft partnership from day one in the organization? And why does it matter?

[00:07:13] Reis Barrie: Yeah, that’s a, that’s another really common one that we get really. Um, and so if, even if you take, take a step back from who, who should own it? It’s the concept of having an owner. So yeah, so often I, like I go in and I, it’s this person’s third job, this person’s second job.

[00:07:30] Reis Barrie: This person’s like the back burner thing that they do on, you know, when they’re, when they’re have extra time on Friday. Um, and that’s like, that’s the results that come out of it, right? Yes. It’s, it’s the third, fourth priority of, of multiple people. And so. That’s what kind of, it shows very clearly not only to your results, but also to Microsoft, frankly.

[00:07:51] Reis Barrie: Um, and so the concept is having an owner of somebody who wakes up every day, and that their, their role is to move the partnership forward is something that, um, if you’re committing to this, this, um, you know, this, this partnership, which is a behemoth of a partnership. They’re a gigantic, massive company.

[00:08:08] Reis Barrie: Um, there is huge returns to be had by partnering with them. But you don’t account for the complexity of it requiring like a dedicated owner. Yeah. Like with, there’s, there’s a, there’s a paradox that with, with, with high, uh, with high impact comes high complexity. Yes. And Microsoft partnerships are not, they’re not necessarily easy by any means, but done.

[00:08:32] Reis Barrie: Right. Generate significant revenue

[00:08:34] Vince Menzione: and it requires that I talk about maniacal focus is one of the principles. And really when you start, when you back up from it, you go, okay, I need my entire organization to be part of this, and that means I need to get the technical team involved, product team involved.

[00:08:49] Vince Menzione: I need to get marketing involved. I need to get sales involved. I need to get the executive leadership of the organization and I need to align all of my organizations to all of Microsoft. In a way that’s gonna make for a complete partnership. Right. Hundred percent. I think to your point, that’s, that’s a full-time job.

[00:09:05] Vince Menzione: Oh

[00:09:06] Reis Barrie: yeah.

[00:09:06] Vince Menzione: And maybe multiple people and Thenso and maybe multiple people in the organization. Yeah. And it’s why they need organizations like Carv in order to be successful doing it. Right?

[00:09:13] Reis Barrie: Yeah. And so, I mean, yes, I agree with, that’s the last, the car statement for sure. But the, uh, the, and it kind of brings back to the, the original question, which is like, where does it sit?

[00:09:23] Reis Barrie: And so. Um, we have these like really strategic alliance teams that sit, sit with partnership. Yes. And usually I see partnerships sitting somewhere under like the, um, the revenue, like the revenue organization, whether it’s the CRO or, uh, VP of sales type of type of, um, structure. But that’s, but it is a dedicated person and or team.

[00:09:44] Reis Barrie: Yeah. Um, that is, is there to drive a, a partnership channel, partnership revenue. Um, and frankly, this person. Has to be, um, they’re a quarterback across Yeah. Every department. Every department. So again, we’re gonna, I think we’re gonna talk about finance here soon. We’re gonna talk about sales, marketing, operations, product.

[00:10:04] Reis Barrie: Like they have to quarterback all of these different departments across organization. ’cause when partnership, like, uh, partnership is truly, um, getting all of those departments to. Uh, lean into the, the needs of the partnership. Yeah. And, and align,

[00:10:19] Vince Menzione: right? Yeah. So one of the areas you were talking about, like aligning, you’re talking about VP of sales mm-hmm.

[00:10:25] Vince Menzione: Is this whole area around compensation.

[00:10:27] Reis Barrie: Yeah.

[00:10:27] Vince Menzione: People miss, they misalign their compensation models as well. Yeah. I think that’s one of the other pitfalls that you see.

[00:10:34] Reis Barrie: Yeah, totally. So, um, I, I would say that at a baseline it has to be net neutral. Absolutely net neutral. At least. And so if there’s any aspect of like working with Microsoft or any partner for that aspect.

[00:10:47] Reis Barrie: Um, feels like a detriment or attacks to me as a salesperson. Like that is a recipe for failure. Yeah. Um, that’s one of the few, there’s very few things that I say like, do not start, like, do not start until this is solved. Yeah. That is like one of the foundational things. Like, I, I do not recommend starting a partnership until that aspect is solved, because unwinding that distaste for partnership in your, like in your sales organization is extremely difficult.

[00:11:12] Reis Barrie: If you start on a bad, bad foot and then you’re trying to. Pivot to a, to a good foot, it’s very difficult. Or, or taking

[00:11:17] Vince Menzione: the, the deals away from the sales reps and saying, well, these are Microsoft deals, so you’re not gonna get paid on these and we’ll have our partner people do them. I’ve seen that happen as well.

[00:11:25] Vince Menzione: And that, that messes things up. It

[00:11:26] Reis Barrie: just, yeah, it, it leaves a really bad taste in, in your organization around, around partnerships. And so, um, that’s one of my first like non-start, like one, a few non-starters I should say.

[00:11:36] Vince Menzione: So get compensation, right. At least. So get it right. And then

[00:11:39] Reis Barrie: I’ve seen this really interesting trend, frankly, of lately, of people.

[00:11:42] Reis Barrie: Not only just not, not only going net neutral, but going. Uh, incentivizing it. Yeah. And so, absolutely. I think, you know, we’ve all been surrounded by a lot of these stats and, and facts about what partnerships drive, whether it’s, uh, access to more budget, access to more customers, uh, faster sales cycles, bigger deal sizes, all of these things.

[00:12:02] Reis Barrie: Like, you hear these, you hear these outputs and you start to think like, well, why wouldn’t I incentivize something that gives me that? Exactly. Um, and I’m starting to see a lot of companies start to, yeah. Actually incentivize the marketplace transaction or incentivize the, uh, co-sell deal for their own reps as well, similar to how Microsoft incentivizes their reps.

[00:12:19] Reis Barrie: Which

[00:12:19] Vince Menzione: makes, makes perfect sense, especially when you’re jump starting a new, a new thing like marketplace. Mm-hmm. If you weren’t in marketplace before or it’s a new partnership.

[00:12:27] Reis Barrie: Yeah.

[00:12:27] Vince Menzione: Yeah. A hundred percent. So you mentioned another hidden area, a pitfall around finance. So could you dive in on that one for us?

[00:12:36] Reis Barrie: So anytime we’re, anytime we’re jumping in to a, to a, to a supportive partnership, uh, with one of our clients, finance is the one we probably usually start with. Okay. Because they’re usually one of the harder stakeholders to, to, um, convince, to get aligned and convince. Um, but ultimately there’s like, there’s two main aspects that I’m trying to align with finance on.

[00:12:58] Reis Barrie: Um, one is just the concept of private offers, right? Our customers are buying a different way. We’re receiving money in a different way. And so we’ve gotta make sure that we actually can receive that money and everything is like tied up so that that process is sound. Um, that’s like the less fun of the two.

[00:13:14] Reis Barrie: So the more fun one is more related to, uh, incentives and benefits. And frankly, Microsoft pays their partners a lot of money. Yeah. Uh, when they align to Microsoft priorities. And it just so happens that Microsoft priorities often align with. Partners making money as well, selling their own solutions. So, um, biggest thing there is aligning with finance of, hey, when we earn these incentive dollars, they’re gonna come back to us.

[00:13:39] Reis Barrie: We’re gonna reinvest in the partnership. Yeah. Um, and so, uh, frankly, we started working clients six months ago, or, or, or so, and, you know, across our entire portfolio, we’re in like the, the tens of millions in incentive dollars that we get from different various Microsoft incentives for our clients. And so this, that’s huge.

[00:13:56] Reis Barrie: This, uh, huge numbers. Oh yeah. They’re huge numbers, especially this year. Um, yeah, some of the numbers that they’re throwing out there with, uh, these incentives are just, uh, crazy. I’ve never seen it. Um, and so they keep growing year over year, and I keep getting surprised year over year. Um, but with this particular client, we, uh, you know, we, we align with finance.

[00:14:13] Reis Barrie: The money comes back to the partnership team and they. Uh, they paid for their Ignite sponsorship with that, which is a big bill for anyone who’s sponsored the night before. Um, they paid for their Ignite sponsorship with that funding. Um, they, they’re, they’re, there’s Reston. Yeah, I was gonna say people, people

[00:14:32] Vince Menzione: use that, that funding.

[00:14:33] Vince Menzione: They’ll be, they’ll be support the ultimate partner live event as they’ll, as there’ll be, there’ll be

[00:14:36] Reis Barrie: resin sponsoring that. Um. And they, they, you know, obviously fund some of the work that we do for them and get a lot of Big R, big ROI on that. Yeah. And so the amount of. Um, you know, injecting the money back into the partnership just again pushes the flywheel back.

[00:14:53] Reis Barrie: And so we wanna make sure we align with finance on both the, you know, they’re gonna receive money in a new way via like private offers or marketplace. And also they’re gonna start to see dollars come in from Microsoft. And we wanna make sure that that doesn’t just go to the bottom line. That it comes back to that flywheel.

[00:15:07] Reis Barrie: You bring

[00:15:08] Vince Menzione: up a really good point. First of all, the predictability of knowing it’s coming. Uh, always a factor too, ’cause like where did this money come from? What is it accountable to? And I’ve seen organizations put it on the bottom line. Mm-hmm. As opposed to attributing it to the right spot in the organization.

[00:15:24] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And then reinvesting the money, as you say here. So I think it’s really important that organizations get that right.

[00:15:29] Reis Barrie: Yeah. A hundred percent. Once it’s, once it’s at the bottom line, it’s very hard to get, like, it’s very hard to get it, get it back to the partnership team from that. So that proactive alignment just, uh, is a, is a must.

[00:15:40] Vince Menzione: So this next one is near and dear to my heart as well because it’s about speaking Microsoft. That’s one of the pitfalls. Organizations don’t understand what sellers really want to hear. Yep. Right. And. We help them kind of get that training, that muscle. Yeah. Worked up in a way, but take us through that and what you see.

[00:15:59] Reis Barrie: Yeah, so again, if you, anyone who follows me on LinkedIn or watched like my posts or my webinar, like almost all of my content is around this because, uh, yeah, I get, uh, I get the privilege to work with. Thousands of Microsoft sellers. Um, and, and there are

[00:16:16] Vince Menzione: thousands, I think it’s 50,000 now. There’s tens of thousands.

[00:16:19] Reis Barrie: And so I get to, I get the privilege to, I always understate numbers ’cause it’s hard for me to, no, no. It’s the amount, the amount of people that there are at this, at the company. Uh, and so I get the privilege to work with all these sellers. And then, and then, um, that means I get to hear the good, the good.

[00:16:33] Reis Barrie: The good pitches. The bad pitches. Yeah. Uh, I get to hear a lot of these things. I get to hear what resonates and what, what doesn’t resonate. Um, and kind of pretty early on I kind of started identifying, hey, like these people are talking most about their product and I can see the, I can see the blank stairs on the seller’s faces.

[00:16:50] Reis Barrie: ’cause, um, because their product is, the product is their language. And if there’s, that’s right. I think the latest number is half a million partners. And so if a seller can’t be expected to understand a half a million languages, no. Um, and so you have to be, you have to be that translator. And so you have to, you have to get it into their language.

[00:17:06] Reis Barrie: And frankly, the partners that cut through the noise are the ones that do the best job at talking Microsoft. Yeah.

[00:17:15] Vince Menzione: Translating to Microsoft, right? Yeah.

[00:17:16] Reis Barrie: And so, and I’ll often say like, treat, like, just treat Microsoft like a customer. Treat your partners like customers, frankly. That’s right. Um, ’cause if we, if we, we would never dream of talking to, um, our customers in this like.

[00:17:30] Reis Barrie: Internal jargon, technical language. We talk about, we resonate with, with what their needs are, right? And so we talk in their language. So it’s, it’s the same concept of Microsoft. They’re, they’re, you’re, you have to talk to them in their language. They understand what priority are you aligned to? How are you gonna influence their compensation?

[00:17:47] Reis Barrie: Like, you know, how are you gonna make it easy? Uh. How is, how are you easy to work with, frankly? Like how are you

[00:17:54] Vince Menzione: preparing for it as well? Right? Yeah. Because so many times these sellers are not well prepared. They don’t really understand, especially when you get to seller, to seller combat. And those sellers just really, they jump on a call and it’s like they’re winging it.

[00:18:09] Reis Barrie: Yeah.

[00:18:10] Vince Menzione: And they’re just going into their sales pitch.

[00:18:12] Reis Barrie: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:12] Vince Menzione: And they’re just expecting Microsoft to absorb it. Like a customer would absorb it. Yep. And then just take it and go, oh yeah, sure. Great. Mm-hmm. We can just go do this together. And. Being able to have that tangible conversation with Microsoft is so important.

[00:18:25] Vince Menzione: A hundred percent. Yeah.

[00:18:26] Reis Barrie: Just like you build scripts for your customers, like you, you have to build like what are your, you know, what are your, you know, your 10 go-to phrases of how we provide value to, to you. Like, have those, have those phrases just locked and loaded, ready to go? You, you jump on a call and it’s, and it’s, you know, this is how we as a partner or as your partner, um, provide value to you and make it easy to work with and this is what we need from you to, to be successful in this deal.

[00:18:51] Vince Menzione: You almost want to create like a dictionary for your, for your partners. Oh yeah. Maybe you’ve already done some of that. We do, yeah. There you go. See, we do, whether it’s speaking call language, acronyms, whether it’s speaking language acronyms, or just the

[00:19:02] Reis Barrie: translation of, of what, what programs they’re uh, involved in and what benefits.

[00:19:07] Reis Barrie: They can do and how, how they’re aligned to their, to their priorities. Like, um, part of our like seller enablement and stuff that we, we do for our partners is, is really about I see. I

[00:19:19] Vince Menzione: see an AI tool coming here somewhere. Oh, for sure. I’m sure. I’m sure. I’m sure there’s an AI

[00:19:24] Reis Barrie: tool coming, uh, like a translate tool coming there for sure.

[00:19:27] Reis Barrie: Microsoft translating. Yeah, I like it.

[00:19:28] Vince Menzione: This next one is also another pitfall that I’ve seen quite a bit of. Um, it’s, it’s kind of like sitting back and bragging about your badges that you’ve got, your certifications. I’ll never forget, uh, doing some work way back, one of the big sis, big large si, uh, international si and all they talked about was their certs.

[00:19:46] Vince Menzione: Mm-hmm. Like that was gonna be a reason why it was gonna be compelling for Microsoft to just jump and give them all their business. Yeah. Take us through that one.

[00:19:55] Reis Barrie: Yeah. So actually, so that’s, I. Just very timely, uh, because, um, there’s the, um, certified software designations Yeah. Which are in Microsoft years, very, very new.

[00:20:07] Reis Barrie: Um, very new. I remember just a couple years now. So, and if you rewind, you can just hear how much they are talking about them and the importance of them. Yeah. Which to me tells me that there’s a bigger, there’s, there’s even a bigger plan than what they already unlock. Um, if they’re, if they’re putting this much emphasis behind.

[00:20:24] Reis Barrie: Getting them. Um, and so it’s, it’s, it’s, again, it’s one of those things that like, it kind of goes back to the like, um. If you build it, you know, they’ll come type of thing. And that being a bit of a fallacy in the Microsoft, Microsoft land. And so, um, just getting the certification doesn’t really do a whole ton if you don’t leverage all the, the levers that it unlocks.

[00:20:42] Reis Barrie: And so, uh, whether that’s tapping into different incentives and benefits, that’s like, I would say one of the primary pieces of getting the certification. So not just getting the certification, but actually taking advantage of all the things that it unlocks from a partnership benefits standpoint. Huge. Um, as well.

[00:21:00] Reis Barrie: Um. There’s different programs that you get to get to get to tap into, which might be like a partner reported. A CR is probably the biggest one where I, I, I see so many partners get the certification and then not take advantage of partner reported a CR, which is like. Just another, another value to stack it, put in your value stack when you’re talking to a Microsoft.

[00:21:18] Reis Barrie: Um, and,

[00:21:19] Vince Menzione: and for those that don’t know, that’s prac.

[00:21:21] Reis Barrie: Yeah. Pricker Prac. Yeah. Parker reported a CR. And so ultimately for like, for a SaaS solution where the a, the, the consumption lands on your tenant, this is the way to ensure that the Microsoft seller gets that long tail consumption as well, not just the upfront, up, upfront component.

[00:21:35] Reis Barrie: So

[00:21:35] Vince Menzione: super important to the Microsoft sellers. So you gotta be able to handle that. Yeah. Because otherwise they, you’re ignoring, you’re ignoring where they’re gonna make money. A

[00:21:43] Reis Barrie: hundred percent. Yeah. Um, and honestly, the partner report a CR is, is, um, this year particularly, they’ve made it, um, of course with any new rollout, there’s some issues, so I’m not gonna de deny that there’s issues with it this year.

[00:21:56] Reis Barrie: Yeah. But, um, but they’ve made it, they’ve made it a lot easier for partners to report. And so that just means that there’s a, there’s an expectation from sellers that, oh. We’re being told it’s easier, it’s part easier. Partners, uh, must be reporting more of it. And so if we’re, if we’re eligible to do it and we’re not doing the thing, like that’s, it’s not a good, it’s not a good story to tell when you have the opportunity to, to take part in it and make that part of your value stack.

[00:22:19] Reis Barrie: It’s, it’s, it’s a really meaningful piece. Yeah. Um, and it gets you

[00:22:23] Vince Menzione: a lot more attention from the sellers. It does.

[00:22:25] Reis Barrie: Yeah. It does. And I’m not, I’m not gonna ignore the fact that it is, it is a, it is a badging, it is to an extent a badging too. And so. Um, you know, you have, uh, Jamie Bain on here a lot. Yeah. And he talks about all the different, like touch points that part that that customers go through before they, at 28 moments.

[00:22:41] Reis Barrie: Yeah.

[00:22:41] Vince Menzione: Yeah.

[00:22:41] Reis Barrie: And before they, I’m one of those people I, I show up ready to buy because I’ve already done my 28, probably 50 moments. Exactly. Um, and so. It does provide some, like a, an element of social proof for certainty for customers too, as, as, as it is, it is also badging, uh, but it is so much more than that as well.

[00:22:58] Reis Barrie: So I don’t wanna discount the fact that it, it does provide that, that social proof on their marketplace as well to

[00:23:02] Vince Menzione: customers. It does, it does. So this next one, number seven, is really important as well, and people. They overlook it in many respects. And it’s actually having a plan. Yeah. And having a very concise plan.

[00:23:13] Vince Menzione: You talk about having a one page plan. Take us through that as a pitfall and why organizations need to pay attention here.

[00:23:20] Reis Barrie: So this is, there’s a simple, there’s a, there’s a, there’s two pieces to this. Um, the one page plan, um. I stress the importance of it. ’cause it seems, it, it, uh, it is, is, uh, achievable, very achievable than like, if you were to say, have a 30 page plan.

[00:23:34] Reis Barrie: Yeah. Um, but it does two things. One, if you have a one page plan, it means you actually have a plan, uh, which is the first checkbox that you gotta, you gotta, you gotta have. And so it’s a, it’s a, it’s an easy way to just make sure that you do have a plan. You are working towards something. Um, you have, you have some goals.

[00:23:52] Reis Barrie: You have it where you, where you align with their priorities outlined. Um. We’re actually working towards something. So that’s like foundation number one is just check the box, have a plan. Yeah. The second one is honestly like you meet so many different personas across, um, Microsoft, that, um, you really want to have this like, you know, often these, sometimes they’re called like battle cards or one page or whatever it might be, but you really want to have this piece that just like, is a highly consumable, simplified version of if you do have this.

[00:24:22] Reis Barrie: Maybe you have this 30, 30 page partnership plan with Microsoft that’s, you know, really in depth and all these things, but you really want to have this simplified piece that you can just, whether it’s handout or remember back to and talk to. Yeah. Um, because you’re gonna, you’re gonna, you know. You’re gonna go to Ultimate Partners and you’re gonna meet all these people, you’re gonna go to all these places, you’re gonna see these people and you’re gonna want to have like, be able to quickly reference back to what are the things that I am working towards in my partnership with Microsoft, and how do we align and how do we sell together, and how are we better together and all these different things.

[00:24:55] Reis Barrie: And so we consolidate it all in one page so that we have this essentially that what feels like an elevator pitch of, of our, yeah. Why are we partners? What are we working towards

[00:25:04] Vince Menzione: together? I’ll, I’ll add another layer to that ’cause I did this way back in the day too, is like, it’s, it’s also, it’s your rallying point with your executive team.

[00:25:13] Vince Menzione: Mm-hmm. Yeah. When you give, do your, hopefully you’re getting in front of your executive team and doing a review on this is such an tangible, important part of your business. Totally. Uh, that you’re kind of, and, and you know, execs are not gonna sit, go through your 30 page plan, but you have that one pager.

[00:25:28] Vince Menzione: And it identifies their area of the business as well. ’cause it’s gonna to have all the touch points in the business and what’s working and what’s not working. Yeah. And I think it’s super important you do that and you con concisely communicate with your executive team.

[00:25:40] Reis Barrie: Yeah.

[00:25:41] Vince Menzione: I I No more words ’cause you know, it’s perfectly said.

[00:25:44] Vince Menzione: It’s ’cause it’s, it’s painful when it’s not working. It really is. It’s just painful.

[00:25:49] Reis Barrie: It really is. Yeah. Um, yeah, the, the, that component and just. What are we working towards? Yeah. I always miss the people, like it’s a simple one, but it, it’s always missed. Like it’s just going through the motions without like, what are we working towards?

[00:26:03] Vince Menzione: And I come back to, I come back to the internal victory all the time, Reese’s, because I’ve seen it so many times. And the CEO will say the right things. The, the executive team will say the right things. Mm-hmm. But. When you peel back, they’re not really, and when you’re talking about billion $2,000,000,008 billion companies, yeah.

[00:26:21] Vince Menzione: There’s a lot more to carry in that relationship. Oh yeah. And you’ve gotta get everybody aligned the right way. It’s so important. Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. Good stuff. So, uh. You talked about partner center a little bit and about sharing referrals. Uh, you, you touched on this one a little bit, but this was number eight on your list of, uh, pitfalls.

[00:26:41] Vince Menzione: Take us through this a little bit more too, because you were talking about a little bit about this.

[00:26:46] Reis Barrie: Yeah. So when it comes to referral sharing, like this is the other topic that, yeah. Microsoft language and referral sharing. If you, if there was two things that I’d probably say a hundred times a month.

[00:26:56] Reis Barrie: It’s, it’s, it’s these two. Um, and so. Yeah. Referral sharing is the foundation of most partnerships, but particularly for Microsoft partnerships, we’re like referral sharing back and forth. Yeah. Um, is just incredibly important. ’cause data is, like, data is essentially the foundation of this partnership.

[00:27:14] Reis Barrie: Absolutely. And so, um. Not even getting to the point now where, like I’m saying like, you should be co-selling. You shouldn’t be co-selling, but just even if you’re not co-selling right now, like there’s a, there’s an option to share, share referrals that you’re not co-selling on. Maybe you’re not ready to share, like to actually co-sell.

[00:27:29] Reis Barrie: You’re not mature. It’s not time yet, yet. Right. But just the act of getting referrals in into partner center is a huge. Has a huge impact on just showing Microsoft, like where are we penetrated? What customers are we talking to? Yeah. What industries are we, are we impacting? What’s the total, like, what’s the total, uh, area that we’re, that we’re, we’re working in?

[00:27:50] Reis Barrie: Yeah. Uh, where, where are we strongest in terms of geography? Um, are we mostly this country? Are we most, are we global? Like it tells them there’s so many data, data touch points that it gives that if you either log nothing. Then they have no data to touch point off of, or they log or you log partial, then they have partial data and they’re assuming it’s full data, um, which is not good either.

[00:28:12] Vince Menzione: I’ve seen people put too many in that were not even deals that they’re working with Microsoft on as well.

[00:28:17] Reis Barrie: Yeah. That works against you. Yeah, it works That, yeah, that works against you as well. And so, um, there’s a, there’s just this, this need of, we need to log relevant, relevant referrals into partner center, um, because.

[00:28:32] Reis Barrie: It’s how they make decisions. It’s how you show up on their scorecards, their dashboards. It’s how they make their decisions. And when they’re looking to, what partners are we gonna manage this year, they need, they need touch points and data, data to, to provide that. And so, so it’s

[00:28:46] Vince Menzione: establishing your credibility with Microsoft as a hundred

[00:28:49] Reis Barrie: percent.

[00:28:50] Reis Barrie: Yeah. Um, and I’ll even, I could probably talk about this next piece all day, so I’ll just stay at service level, but, um. Microsoft is one of, if not the leading AI company in the world. Yeah. And like, if it’s, it’s, you know, there’s 28 touch points that Jamie Vain talks about. Like that’s, uh, I, I, I personally believe that that’s soon to be a lot of assessed by ai.

[00:29:15] Reis Barrie: And so yes, if, if AI is looking at this, all of these different touch points and referrals happens to be one of those touch points, um. You want to show up? Well, yeah.

[00:29:26] Vince Menzione: Um, you wanna show up really well? Really good point. So the next one, which we’re, we’re up to nine already, by the way. We’re almost, we’re almost through the list of 12.

[00:29:35] Vince Menzione: So hopefully you’re watching Yeah. And listening and paying attention and rewinding. Yeah. Uh, this one is about treating all deals as co-sell deals. This one is interesting to me ’cause I think, I think people like over pivot in some respects towards co-selling. I think so too. Yeah. So tell us about that one.

[00:29:51] Reis Barrie: It was super timely ’cause I just literally had a conversation yesterday with, uh. I, I won’t, I won’t end the company, but very, very large, very established, uh, organization. And as we were doing a workshop with them, and I, okay, like how many, you know, how many deals do you share? Why don’t we share about a, you know, I think it was about a thousand a year or something like that.

[00:30:10] Reis Barrie: Yeah. Um, okay, great. Like what’s your, how many, how many of those are co-sell? Well, we actually, all of them, so. That’s a lot of deals to expect

[00:30:19] Vince Menzione: to be co-sell. Super

[00:30:20] Reis Barrie: fascinating. So one, like, I don’t even think they could take a thousand calls if they, if they had, if they, if they booked calls with every single seller, like a thousand calls, that’d be a lot.

[00:30:28] Reis Barrie: Like, that’s a lot. I, I doubt they could even scale to that, that amount. Uh, so it’s, part of it is, can you scale to that? Another piece is like, where do you actually need help? Um, exactly. You know, they’ve been around for 50 years, like. Yeah, I, I have full confidence in this particular example. Like they, they can sell a lot of their solutions by themselves.

[00:30:46] Reis Barrie: Yeah. They don’t need Microsoft at all. And so, but there are, there are three to five really valuable use cases where we, they really do truly need help on co-sell. And so when you, when you put everything as co-sell, but not, but you don’t actually need true help on everything, uh, it dilutes from the fact of where you actually do need help from.

[00:31:04] Reis Barrie: And so, um, when we identify. When we come into some of these, some of these places who are sharing everything as co-sell, we wanna identify, okay, one, like what’s your capacity to actually to take calls? Because if I book, if I book 50 calls this week for you, like are you gonna be able to do it or not do it?

[00:31:21] Reis Barrie: Um, and some people have giant, giant teams that can do it and some people just can’t. So what’s the actual capacity to do that? And that’ll dictate. How much we can actually, uh, look at. And so, and then we look at what are the three to five like use cases that are really high value for you to talk to a Microsoft seller where you have a really good, uh, case to talk to a Microsoft seller.

[00:31:42] Reis Barrie: So, uh, we’re going there with actual, like, we need this type of support, not just going there and say, oh, I just, I want to, I wanna talk

[00:31:48] Vince Menzione: about this customer. Um, and it, it makes the impact so much greater if you pick the 1, 2, 3, whatever the number is and where you really need help.

[00:31:58] Reis Barrie: Yeah.

[00:31:58] Vince Menzione: Totally. I need to reach the CIO.

[00:32:00] Vince Menzione: Yeah. I need to have this conversation. I need Microsoft to really like lean in on, on our relationship. ’cause my competitors are in there as well. What, whatever that might be a hundred percent. But if you try to do that across a thousand deals, you’re not gonna get the support. Yeah. You’re just not gonna, it’s not gonna happen.

[00:32:15] Vince Menzione: Yeah.

[00:32:16] Reis Barrie: So we’re just, we’re trying to create like. As many positive experiences between the partner and the MI and Microsoft seller as I possibly can. And so, uh, there’s al it’s very rare that I’ve seen where someone can create, like truly needs that much value from Microsoft seller. And there’s a great, great cause for that.

[00:32:33] Reis Barrie: So when we, when we narrow down, we actually create more positive experiences, actually come, it comes back to the lead situation, which create more positive experience of easy to work with, high value partner. Um. Then actually like, then you start to get into some interesting like account planning type stuff.

[00:32:48] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Um, those are fun. Yeah, those are fun. They’re, so this next one, number 10, talks about rewards and incentives. And we, we, you were touching on this earlier about like, there’s so much more out there right now with Microsoft, but, and it could be rocket fuel, but not using them effectively, underusing them.

[00:33:05] Vince Menzione: Where should partners start?

[00:33:07] Reis Barrie: Yeah, so we, we’ve already, uh, we’ve already established the, uh. Don’t put it at the bottom line. Yeah, that’s the, that’s, that’s a bad one. That’s where you establish what not to do. Yeah. Uh, we’ve also established to tell finance it’s coming ’cause uh, probably one of the worst situations I ever had to try to work with a partner on is where they didn’t tell finance it was coming.

[00:33:26] Reis Barrie: They don’t know it’s there. Uh, finance thought it was a mistake and sent it back to Microsoft. Oh. And so not good. Once you send it back to Microsoft, they’re not gonna, they’re not sending it back. It’s, it’s not gonna come back that easily. And so we’ve already established those with, those are two things that we wanna make sure we’re aligned on and not doing.

[00:33:42] Reis Barrie: Um, but in terms of like what we, what we, what we are doing, um, anytime we can use it as a, uh, pre-sales or post-sales incentive to get a customer to either, uh, commit faster or buy more. Um, these are, these are good use cases. Um, anytime we can, uh, take it back in-house and, um, re uh, reinvest in the partnership.

[00:34:07] Reis Barrie: That’s, those are good use cases. I’ve seen partners where they’ve actually used some of the funding to, um. You know, be like their, uh, actually their Quest customer swag bucket where they’ve sent, like, they keep, they kept customers on like a swag list and, and used all the incentive money from Microsoft to keep the, keep the funnel going of, of any co-sell deal.

[00:34:27] Reis Barrie: Got got a particular like swag package. I love it. I love it. And so you can do some fun, you can do some fun stuff with it, but ultimately it comes back to. Um, how are, how are we reinvesting it? Either you can reinvest it into headcount, you can reinvest it into events, you can reinvest it into, uh, co-marketing or just marketing to generate leads.

[00:34:44] Reis Barrie: People say Microsoft doesn’t gimme leads, uh, they give you a lot of money and you can use that money to get leads. That’s right. Um, and so, uh, the fundamentals come back to, um, how are we using it to. Move the flywheel faster and faster and faster because, um, reinvesting it back into the partnership. And, and there’s many ways you can do that.

[00:35:07] Reis Barrie: Um. I’ve, I’ve seen that be the exponential growth that partners are like really looking for.

[00:35:13] Vince Menzione: And you mentioned earlier, I’ll reiterate it now, that there’s a lot more money coming back to partners now than ever. Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s actually, it is a factor by of 2,

[00:35:24] Reis Barrie: 3,

[00:35:24] Vince Menzione: 4. What do you think the factor is?

[00:35:26] Reis Barrie: Um, so I would say the, um, this is a, you put me on the spot, so I’m gonna give you on the spot rough number.

[00:35:34] Reis Barrie: I love it. So I would, I would give it like a. Uh, from numbers we’re seeing like we’re able to, to pull in probably three x the amount X that we did last year. Three

[00:35:42] Vince Menzione: x. You’re that partners. Yeah. It’s time. It’s a lot, it’s time.

[00:35:45] Reis Barrie: Um, but, but also get it right, its. It’s easier. Yeah. Um, in many aspects to, to acquire the, the funds ’cause it is getting, it is getting easier.

[00:35:54] Reis Barrie: And then the bucket of funds is either like, uh, caps are getting raised or removed. Uh, new programs are getting added to either like where post-sales, maybe it was just a post-sales program before, now there’s a pre-sales component to it as well. Nice. Um, and, and just different aspects are getting, uh.

[00:36:13] Reis Barrie: It’s getting easier to, it’s getting easier to pull it in. Um, and it’s getting into bank accounts faster. Yeah. Frankly, in many ways.

[00:36:21] Vince Menzione: So we’re up to 11. I can’t

[00:36:22] Reis Barrie: believe it.

[00:36:23] Vince Menzione: Up to 11 already. We’re gonna go through ’em one more time at the end. Yeah.

[00:36:26] Reis Barrie: Can’t believe it. This

[00:36:27] Vince Menzione: one is, I wanna ask you that this one partners scale.

[00:36:29] Vince Menzione: What’s the first thing that breaks. Ooh, usually operations. Operations usually. Um,

[00:36:35] Reis Barrie: yeah, it’s usually operations. ’cause we’re like, um, yeah, we’re, we’re, it’s like a lot of pill folks are sales and marketing focused and so it’s, it’s a lot of times the operations, the piece that I see that, that get overlooked and so, yeah.

[00:36:45] Reis Barrie: And it gets

[00:36:46] Vince Menzione: overlooked sometimes early in the process too, right? It, they’re not maybe pulled in as quickly as they should be.

[00:36:51] Reis Barrie: Yeah. It gets, um, I’ve seen too many partners, uh. Scale a bad process. Yeah. And so they have a really, like, they have a really, like a, a, a process that’s meant for, um, you know, five deals a month and then there’s scale to 50 deals a month, and they try to use the same process and that that just doesn’t work.

[00:37:10] Reis Barrie: Um, ’cause it just amplifies all the flaws that the process had in the first place, um, with lack of process, uh, in the first place. And so, um, and frankly like the, that’s the, those are the foundations that everything gets built off of. And so this operational. Um, this operational backbone of how are we managing the partnership?

[00:37:29] Reis Barrie: How are we making sure that we’re, you know, if there’s 30 things we have to look across over the course of the year, how do we make sure that we have rhythms built in the business where, you know, somebody is accountable and owning that component. Yeah. Um, how do we make sure that we have, um, the right.

[00:37:45] Reis Barrie: Things built into our serum system to be able to pull, pull accurate data in terms of like what we actually want to co-sell on. Um, and so we wanna make sure we have all these kind of, these operational backbones and rhythms built so that when we do scale from five to 50 to a hundred to whatever the number may be, um, that the process can scale with us and it’s gonna evolve over time.

[00:38:07] Reis Barrie: But ultimately, like. Uh, we wanna make sure that it’s, it’s a front of mind thing that we’re actually Yeah. Looking at.

[00:38:13] Vince Menzione: So get rev ops involved early.

[00:38:15] Reis Barrie: Yeah.

[00:38:15] Vince Menzione: Rev ops is a huge component, a huge part. Getting, get ’em in, integrated into your process. Uh, c you mentioned CRM system. You’ve got a, you’ve got a. Kind of break your CRM solution to support the partner Yeah.

[00:38:27] Vince Menzione: Org. And there’s a lot of that that needs to then go into partner center that you Yeah. You help organizations through, but you really gotta get that rev ops piece. Yeah. The s and, and two

[00:38:36] Reis Barrie: factors too. Not only, uh, not deal, not only deal sharing, but also, uh, uh, private offer management as well. Yeah, exactly.

[00:38:43] Reis Barrie: And so they have to, they have to be able to manage both. So such a big component. If you can, if you can sell a hundred deals and you can cost a hundred deals, that’s, that’s one thing. But if you can’t, if you, if you have no process to actually share the private offers, that’s a totally different problem.

[00:38:56] Reis Barrie: Yeah. So we want to, we need to make sure we’re building both in parallel

[00:38:59] Vince Menzione: and we’re not gonna get into the whole marketplace dynamics here, but it’s super important that you understand that these organizations are sometimes burning down their commitment, which means you need to get rev ops involved in that process so that they can properly burn down the commitments.

[00:39:14] Vince Menzione: And attribute it and so on. So that’s part of the rev ops components of it as well.

[00:39:19] Reis Barrie: Yeah. Yeah. And it just, the reading the stat, these 80% of enterprise companies are buying through, like through marketplaces right now. Yeah. And so this is like a, yeah. Um. It is quickly becoming a a, it is quickly becoming and will continue, I think, to become a customer preference in many, in many cases.

[00:39:37] Reis Barrie: And so

[00:39:38] Vince Menzione: I love it. ’cause two years ago nobody was talking about it. I know. We, we, we started talking about it at our events and trying to encourage organizations to go this route. So it’s so, it’s so great to see. It is really cool. It’s, yeah, it,

[00:39:48] Reis Barrie: it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, we get to watch like kind of, uh, from a different perspective.

[00:39:53] Reis Barrie: A, it’s crazy. A lot of people kind of jump in either midstream, but seeing, seeing how things play out over a period of, um, you know, multiple years. Yeah. Um, is always, it’s just an interesting perspective. So like. To look at things about. It’s ’cause we’re

[00:40:04] Vince Menzione: on a rocket ship. It’s a crazy, crazy time in our industry and we are on a rocket ship.

[00:40:09] Vince Menzione: So this last one is near and dear to my heart as well. Right. So you talk about the feedback loop, the communication loop, we always talk about communications almost being like the eighth principle of successful partnering. Mm-hmm. Yeah. We’ve talked about it. In fact, super important. One of the articles we wrote, it actually was in their communications being important.

[00:40:25] Vince Menzione: What happens when partners fail to build good communication loops or feedback loops with Microsoft?

[00:40:32] Reis Barrie: It just, uh, the quick answer is just they go, the partnership goes stagnant. Yeah. Um, goes to hell on am starts. Yeah, it does. It starts to stall out. Yeah. But like, uh, uh, it’s a funny, it’s a funny concept ’cause even the word partnership like implies deep communication, deep feedback loops, like working in, working in partnership with each other.

[00:40:54] Reis Barrie: And so like, it’s, it’s naturally just implied in the term that we’re talking about. Um, but so many times I see, like, I just, I see the, uh. The partner who is like dying to become a managed partner, got like, got the PDM, did the whole thing, and then like now it’s, uh, you know, oh, I can’t make, I can’t make this call, I can’t make this call.

[00:41:13] Reis Barrie: I can’t make this call. I’m just like, okay. Like that’s not good. This is, this is, this is the start of the end right here. Yeah. Because the moment you start to deprioritize, like the rhythms and the communication and the feedback loops, um. Things go south really fast because your ROB,

[00:41:29] Vince Menzione: your rhythm of the business.

[00:41:30] Vince Menzione: Yeah. By the way, if you, that’s a big Microsoft term. Huge one. Huge one. And I, you know, we, we’ve, we’ve talked about it before this, the whole idea about like having a very strong rhythm, rhythm of your business with Microsoft. Yeah. This is so critical to success. I talked about the Kumbaya meetings, right?

[00:41:47] Vince Menzione: We’d have, we’d have these big meetings. PowerPoint slides, executives lining up on both sides of the table. Yep. We all like high five each other at the end. I’ve crickets. And then of those, and then crickets, nothing happens. That is su such a recipe for failure, as you say in number 12 here, not not having a feedback loop.

[00:42:04] Reis Barrie: Yeah. Yeah. So no feedback loop and the rhythm of the business. I can’t, I can’t emphasize that enough because that’s

[00:42:09] Vince Menzione: so what’s a good rhythm? Is it a monthly call? Is it.

[00:42:12] Reis Barrie: Um, let’s see. It depends on who you can, who you can, who you can plug in with. But if you have a PDM, then weekly or biweekly, frankly, is, is a great, great cadence.

[00:42:22] Reis Barrie: Um, talking through, um, pipeline incentives, uh, upcoming events. Upcoming what upcoming. Programmatic shifts and things like that, making sure we’re staying, uh, in pace. Um, some partners are part of different, like partner councils, which are great feedback loops as well, uh, to be able to influence whether that’s solution areas or marketplace or partner center.

[00:42:43] Reis Barrie: And there’s different partner councils as well. So we can, if you can work your, say you work your way into one of those, like those are honestly great feedback loops, uh, as well. Um, but again, like it’s, uh, it’s a, um. You gotta show up. Yeah. Um, I love it. It’s, you gotta show up. I’ve, I, I harp on this because I see it, so I see it so often where you want it, like, partners wanted something so bad now that they, now that they have it, like it’s, it’s now we’re, we’re starting to get complacent in certain areas and it comes back kind of to that, uh, I think number two, which was having owner.

[00:43:16] Reis Barrie: Yeah. Um, and so. I’ve also seen organizations where they have like an owner, but the owner also manages, you know, eight other partnerships within the company and, and can’t give enough time to this particular one. Or misses meetings ’cause it’s, you know, during a month or at events and, and, and different conferences and whatnot.

[00:43:34] Reis Barrie: And you know, don’t talk to Microsoft for a month. It’s long time not talk to your partner.

[00:43:39] Vince Menzione: Reese, this is so valuable. Again, I’m gonna tell you all, go back, rewind this. If you’re on YouTube, you just move that little bar back and hit play again. But it’s expecting Microsoft to send you leads. It’s no, that’s number one.

[00:43:53] Vince Menzione: It’s no owner for Microsoft Partnership. Number two. Misaligning compensation models. Three. Finance isn’t ready. Number four, weak Microsoft specific messaging. Number five, certification as a logo. Number six. Mm-hmm. No one not having a one page partner Plan number seven, not sharing referrals in partner center.

[00:44:12] Vince Menzione: Number eight. Not treating, uh, or treating all deals as co-sell deals. Number nine, underusing rewards and incentives. Number 10. Scaling without ops ready, being ops ready, number 11 and no feedback loop with Microsoft. Number 12. Yeah, Reese, you just hit the nail on the head, man. This is incredible.

[00:44:31] Reis Barrie: Awesome.

[00:44:31] Reis Barrie: It’s, yeah, all my passion. Yeah, so I love talking through these. I, I love talking through these and if

[00:44:35] Vince Menzione: you’re lazy or if you really want to get. Deep in this come to our event October 27th through the 29th Reston, Virginia. It is not a public sector event, by the way. I just wanna be clear on this. ’cause a lot of people said, oh, you’re doing a public sector event?

[00:44:49] Vince Menzione: No. Mm-hmm. Just, we picked the East Coast location being Washington, DC Yeah. Reese is gonna be doing an incredible workshop. Yeah. His workshops are usually sold out, standing room only. He’ll be, he’ll be on stage with us as well at this event. We’ve got some incredible leaders from Microsoft. We also have AWS in the room and some other organizations, some incredible partner sponsors, and also other sponsors, technology sponsors there.

[00:45:15] Vince Menzione: I think there’s 23 sponsors actually for this event. Oh, that’s incredible. Yeah, it is incredible. And this will be another incredible event. We will be live streaming if you can’t make it, but we want you in the room. You’re gonna be elbow to elbow with leaders like Reese. You’re gonna learn from executives, from Microsoft, as well as other partners that have gotten it right, working with the tech giant.

[00:45:34] Vince Menzione: But you’re gonna learn more and the immersion is incredible. I hear it all the time from our events. So we hope to see you in Reston, Virginia, October 27th to the 29th. Reese, so great to have you back here.

[00:45:45] Reis Barrie: Yeah, so great to be here. I look forward to seeing, seeing you in Reston. Yes. Seeing everyone else in Reston as well.

[00:45:50] Reis Barrie: Doing those workshops is like one of my favorite things, Frank. Yeah, it’s

[00:45:53] Vince Menzione: gonna be awesome. And then we have some other things we’re gonna be talking about, uh, probably in Reston you’re gonna hear more about what’s gonna happen here in Boca. And we have a couple other things that are going on that we will share.

[00:46:04] Vince Menzione: It’s kind of under the covers right now. So you gotta come, you gotta come see us all and you’ll learn firsthand what’s happening in the world of Ultimate partner. Thank you so much for watching, listening, and supporting the ultimate Guide to partnering. Thank you.

Unlock the secrets to explosive growth in the digital landscape! 

Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/

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Is your business ready for 2026?

Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Podcast.

In this powerful discussion, Vince Menzione shares his personal journey and the mission behind the Ultimate Partner movement. After a near-fatal accident, he gained a new perspective on the importance of community and the power of partnerships. Vince dives deep into the “tectonic shifts” reshaping our industry—from the rise of AI and cloud marketplaces to new buyer expectations. He introduces the seven Operating Principles of successful partnering, a framework designed to provide leaders with the clarity and conviction needed to thrive in a world of constant change. This is more than a podcast; it’s a movement built on the belief that success is never achieved alone and that together, leaders can achieve extraordinary outcomes.

If you’re ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community. At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins.

As we enter the last four months of the calendar year, you are probably asking yourself, “What events should I attend this fall and why?”

Many Partners and Leaders are trying to determine if the big events make the most sense and what they will learn. Many of these events are big and unyieldy, and while you may bump into some friends, you need to really ask yourself if they will help you achieve your greatest results – as a leader, as an organization, or as a partner.

Our attendees tell us they get more accomplished in two full days than in most of the year at our events – they learn from Hyperscaler Leaders, Top Award Winning Partners, and the Masters. Learn from the best, meet the best, grow your business faster and further.

An Ultimate Partner LIVE is like YOUR Masterclass. We begin with a view of “Where We Are Today” as the tectonic shifts are happening faster than ever before. Our first day sessions explore the advances in AI, Hyperscaler Growth, Marketplaces, Co-Selling, Ecosystem Led Growth, and more. These sessions are led from the leaders driving the discussions at Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, AvePoint Veeam Software, Carahsoft, Elastic and more.

On Day Two, an Industry Analyst will bring it all together as our industry experts help you plot the future course – applying the learnings to maximize results.

And, you’ll learn more from the Partner Technology firms, Partner Consultants, and others helping partners like you achieve more and walk away with over a million dollars worth of insights, learnings, and practical advice to apply to your business. In fact, we will have over 10 unique workshops at the fall event alone.

You will be in the room with other executives like you, or partner leaders looking to get to that level. Join us for a unique welcome reception and – if you’re fortunate – you’ll be joining our Executive Dinner. This event will feel more intimate than past Ultimate Partner LIVE settings. You’ll love the experience.

This is your last chance to take advantage of a unique opportunity to sign up early and SAVE.> Next weekend, Early Bird Pricing Ends – and will NOT be available again. Also, our special Hyatt Regency Reston will only last for a short time.

I look forward to hosting YOU this fall!

Click HERE while time still lasts.

Vince Menzione, Microsoft, Ultimate Partner, The Ultimate Guide to Partnering, business strategy, cloud marketplaces, AI transformation, partnership principles, technology leadership, organizational alignment, growth mindset, executive commitment, visionary leadership, scalable startups, resilient leadership, tectonic shifts, ecosystem growth, tech industry, B2B sales.

Transcript:

Ultimate Partner Promo 2025

[00:00:00] Vince Menzione: Welcome. I’m Vince Menon, and if you followed me, you know me as the host of The Ultimate Guide to Partnering. Some of you have attended our events or maybe you’re part of our Growing Ultimate Partner community. But today I want to go deeper. I wanna share my journey, what’s happened earlier this year, and how my friends and team have rallied behind me and why I believe this movement we’re building together.

[00:00:26] Vince Menzione: Is about to become bigger than ever because in this moment of massive change, these tectonic shifts, we talk about reshaping our industry and our lives. We need clarity, we need frameworks, and we need community more than ever, my journey began way before ultimate partner. I grew up in a family that taught me the power of resilience and trust.

[00:00:50] Vince Menzione: I ran a small business while in college. Scaled startups from a few million dollars to hundreds of millions of dollars and later led a multi-billion dollar partner business at Microsoft. Through it all, I learned one powerful truth. Success is never built alone. It happens through partnerships. When I started Ultimate Guide to Partnering nearly a decade ago, it was my way of amplifying those lessons.

[00:01:19] Vince Menzione: To bring you the voices, insights, and stories of the leaders shaping our industry. Over 270 episodes later, it’s grown into a trusted platform, but more importantly, it’s grown into a movement. A community of leaders committed to helping each other achieve their greatest results, and then this year changed everything for me.

[00:01:44] Vince Menzione: You see, a near fatal accident brought my life to a halt. Overnight. I went from building businesses and hosting events to fighting for recovery. In those difficult months, I was carried by my family, my team, and by so many of you friends and colleagues reaching out with encouragement, support, and belief.

[00:02:07] Vince Menzione: It reminded me of something powerful. You see, this mission is bigger than me. Ultimate partner is about all of us. A collective of leaders, builders, and innovators navigating change together. That clarity gave me even more conviction to double down now on this work, because let’s face it, the world isn’t slowing down.

[00:02:35] Vince Menzione: AI is transforming every business and redefining what’s possible. Cloud marketplaces are reshaping how customers buy and how we go to market. New buyer personas and new expectations are changing. The way we sell the ecosystem is no longer a nice to have. It’s the multiplier for growth. These are the tectonic shifts we talk about at Ultimate Partner and in times like this, leaders need frameworks, clarity, and a community they can trust.

[00:03:09] Vince Menzione: That’s why I developed what I call the seven Operating principles of successful Partnering. These principles come from decades of experience, hundreds of conversations with leaders and the lived lessons of this community. Here’s what they are and how they guide everything we do at Ultimate Partner. You see, the first is a growth mindset.

[00:03:32] Vince Menzione: In a world of change, curiosity and learning are the superpower. Winners embrace possibility. The second is executive commitment. Success requires leadership buy-in and organizational alignment. It doesn’t happen at the edges. The third is vision and value alignment. Great partnerships are built when leaders align on purpose, outcomes, and value creation, and once you’ve got that, you need the fourth maniacal focus.

[00:04:04] Vince Menzione: The best results come when we prioritize, simplify, and concentrate energy on what matters most. Once you get to there, you need the fifth element, Brandon’s story. You see, your story is your magnet partners and customers rally around belief, credibility, and trust. And it’s the easiest way and the best way to sell with the hyperscalers.

[00:04:29] Vince Menzione: And once you start to build that flywheel, you get to getting results. Number six, where outcomes are the currency of trust winning partners obsess over execution and measurable impact. And once you’ve gotten those first six, all right. And you’ve reached the pinnacle of success. What happens? Things change.

[00:04:51] Vince Menzione: The world changes. We have tectonic shifts. We have organizations like Hyperscalers, like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon changing programs, changing priorities. And you need to change because change is your constant. Leaders must anticipate pivot and leverage change before it overwhelms them. These aren’t just abstract ideas.

[00:05:14] Vince Menzione: This is the heartbeat of Ultimate Guide to Partnering our live Ultimate Partner events, our community, and this movement. So what do we stand for? We stand for helping technology leaders like you achieve your greatest results through successful partnering. We do it through our podcast, bringing you the most relevant voices in technology.

[00:05:36] Vince Menzione: We do it through our ultimate partner live events and events that we host here in our studio in Boca Raton, where leaders gather to align, learn, and connect, and we do it through our community where frameworks, best practices and experience sharing, create clarity and confidence. And we do it together because no single leader, no single company, can thrive in isolation any longer.

[00:06:05] Vince Menzione: This is why I say ultimate partner is more than a podcast, more than an event. It’s a movement and it’s about to become bigger than ever because as these tectonic shifts accelerate, leaders who embrace growth, align on vision and commit to partnerships will be the ones who thrive. So I wanna say thank you, my family, my team, my friends, and this community for lifting me through this year.

[00:06:34] Vince Menzione: And giving me more clarity and the path ahead. And I wanna invite you, join us, subscribe to the podcast, come to our live events, become part of this community because together we will achieve our greatest results through successful partnering. And yes, the best is yet to come.

Unlock the secrets to explosive growth in the digital landscape! 

Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/

Check Out UPX: https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/

Is your business ready for 2026?

Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Podcast.

Join Peter Graber from Ingram Micro and Christine Mulcahy from ContentGen as they unveil a powerful synergy transforming the MSP and SMB landscape. Peter details Ingram Micro’s evolution from a traditional distributor to a “platform first, experience-driven company” with their Al-powered Xvantage platform, seamlessly integrating commerce, insights, automation, and enablement for multi-vendor, multi-solution environments. Christine then introduces ContentGen, an automated content development platform leveraging Al to drastically reduce the cost and complexity of content marketing for partners, enabling them to tell compelling “better together” stories and accelerate their go-to-market. This session highlights how these innovations are providing MSPs with simplified management and strategic growth, crucial for navigating the complex world of Al, hardware, and software solutions.

If you’re ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community. At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins.

As we enter the last four months of the calendar year, you are probably asking yourself, “What events should I attend this fall and why?”

Many Partners and Leaders are trying to determine if the big events make the most sense and what they will learn. Many of these events are big and unyieldy, and while you may bump into some friends, you need to really ask yourself if they will help you achieve your greatest results – as a leader, as an organization, or as a partner.

Our attendees tell us they get more accomplished in two full days than in most of the year at our events – they learn from Hyperscaler Leaders, Top Award Winning Partners, and the Masters. Learn from the best, meet the best, grow your business faster and further.

An Ultimate Partner LIVE is like YOUR Masterclass. We begin with a view of “Where We Are Today” as the tectonic shifts are happening faster than ever before. Our first day sessions explore the advances in AI, Hyperscaler Growth, Marketplaces, Co-Selling, Ecosystem Led Growth, and more. These sessions are led from the leaders driving the discussions at Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, AvePoint Veeam Software, Carahsoft, Elastic and more.

On Day Two, an Industry Analyst will bring it all together as our industry experts help you plot the future course – applying the learnings to maximize results.

And, you’ll learn more from the Partner Technology firms, Partner Consultants, and others helping partners like you achieve more and walk away with over a million dollars worth of insights, learnings, and practical advice to apply to your business. In fact, we will have over 10 unique workshops at the fall event alone.

You will be in the room with other executives like you, or partner leaders looking to get to that level. Join us for a unique welcome reception and – if you’re fortunate – you’ll be joining our Executive Dinner. This event will feel more intimate than past Ultimate Partner LIVE settings. You’ll love the experience.

This is your last chance to take advantage of a unique opportunity to sign up early and SAVE.> Next weekend, Early Bird Pricing Ends – and will NOT be available again. Also, our special Hyatt Regency Reston will only last for a short time.

I look forward to hosting YOU this fall!

Click HERE while time still lasts.

.

Key Tags:

Ingram Micro, Content Gen, distribution evolution, MSPs, SMB market, AI platform, Advantage platform, ecosystem enablement, automated content, channel marketing, go-to-market strategy, strategic growth, digital transformation, cloud solutions, hardware-software integration, recurring revenue, partner profitability, AI agents, cybersecurity, hybrid cloud.

Transcription:

[00:00:00] Christine Mulcahy: Well, I’d say, you know, if you’re any type of partner in the ecosystem, buy into these platforms because they, there’s a lot of smart people building them and doing all the work for you so that you don’t have to figure that out as part of the rest of your biz dev strategy, and you can just focus on what you do.

Well,

[00:00:17] Vince Menzione: we believe this time is like no other. We, we refer to these as the tectonic shifts,

[00:00:23] Intro: all the hyperscalers in the world, if you add them all together. Managed services will be one and a half times larger because it is the customer buying behavior that has created the need for all of us to rethink our models.

Until we have data quality, the effectiveness of AI cannot be realized and effectiveness of the partnerships cannot be realized. Can you figure out, first, what your purpose is and how Microsoft can support your purpose and how you can support Microsoft purpose? Now we have a partnership. It’s the ultimate partnership.

[00:00:55] Vince Menzione: Welcome to The Ultimate Guide to Partnering. I’m Vince Menzi, own your host, and my mission is to help leaders like you achieve your greatest results through successful partnering. We just came off Ultimate Partner Live at Microsoft Redmond Campus. Our most powerful event yet. Over two days, we gathered top leaders to tackle the real shifts shaping our industry.

If you weren’t in the room, this episode and interview features Peter Grabber from Ingram Micro and Christine Mulcahy from Content Gen for a lively discussion on the future of distribution. We take it right to the edge of what’s next. So let’s dive in now, and we’ve talked about this SMB moment. And the MSPs and this incredible opportunity area.

This is where the fire hydrant is gonna come at us and the, and the power is coming at us really strict right now in terms of how we drive more success in our marketplaces. I am thrilled to invite on stage for the first time. Ingram Micro as both a speaker and a sponsor or event, and Peter Grabber is joining me for an in-depth conversation on what’s been going on in Ingram.

We talked, we heard PAX eight yesterday, but Ingram has an incredible approach, has an incredible pedigree as a distributor and is really evolving their business as well. So I wanna welcome to the stage Peter Grabber. Thank you. Thank you for joining us, Peter. Thanks Vince. So good to have you join us.

Thank you, sir. So, so great to have you on stage. Absolutely. Thank you. And supporting our event. Awesome. Awesome. Peter’s from Buffalo, New York. For those of you go Bills who might be part of the Bills mafia. Yes. Uh, they are my second favorite team after the Philadelphia Eagles. So, so great to have you.

Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. So, so great to have you join us. Um, some really exciting things happening in your organization. Uh, for, I, I want you to. Tell us about your role and maybe a little bit about Ingram. I don’t want to pre assume some things, even though I know about Martha and Bronson back in the day.

Sure, sure,

[00:02:57] Peter Graber: sure. Go ahead. Um, so Peter Grabber, I actually run our, uh, Cisco and our Microsoft practice at Ingram Micro. Plus a couple other hats that I wear as well. Um, but Ingram Micro is a global distributor. Obviously. We have a, a huge scale from a distribution standpoint, multi-vendor, multi solution service generated organization.

And, um, we’re, we’re taking the leap into a platform company, which is something that I’ll, I’ll dig into a little bit.

[00:03:21] Vince Menzione: Fantastic. Yeah, and I think the really important to note, because back in the day, distribution was a very different thing than it’s today, right? We used to think about credit. Availability of product.

Right. And shipping and all those things. Sure. That were so important to be a distributor and why people use distributors back in the day.

[00:03:38] Peter Graber: Absolutely. And now all that still is valid, but it’s being rolled up into a platform now. Yeah. That will be pretty seamless.

[00:03:44] Vince Menzione: Yeah. I want, we wanna hear about that, right?

Yeah, we want to talk about that. So let’s talk about this, we’ll call the future of distribution. Right. As we, we, we go back to the old days and we need a product delivered. We needed credit, we needed all those things to have distribution. What’s changed and what is the future of distribution from your perspective?

[00:04:02] Peter Graber: Yeah. So, so thanks Vincent. That is, um, I, I think it’s a great topic. It’s interesting, especially over the last couple days when we’ve talked about how our industry is evolving. And distribution definitely needs to be part of that discussion. So no longer is distribution, just about logistics, like you said, or moving product from point A to point B.

Um, it has necessary to evolve beyond that. Um, so the way that we look at the future of distribution is really, um, based on, um, intelligence integration and enablement. And that’s a huge shift for every player in, in, in our space, from CSPs to MSPs and every partner type. Um, the one thing that I’ll say, and we, we talked about over the last couple days too, and it’s obvious that, um, our industry is exploding in complexity.

Yes. And it’s something we all know and it’s not slowing down. But if you think about everything we’re dealing with in terms of, um, hybrid cloud environments, um, uh, multiple subscription, uh, models. Managed services, cybersecurity, LA layers, multi-vendor environments across the ecosystem of product.

[00:05:09] Vince Menzione: Ai,

[00:05:10] Peter Graber: ai, ai, ai.

Absolutely. And we have something called, um, customer expectations that we continue need to manage ’cause those continue to rise and evolve. Um. So we also know too, that our partners, especially MSPs, aren’t just sourcing product anymore. They are building customized, full scalable solutions across a multitude of vendors and services.

When you add all of that together, that’s a lot to manage and scale. Yeah. So that’s where the transformation of Ingram comes in. So we are no longer distributor. We are a platform first, experience driven company. And what is driving or at the heart of that transformation is Advantage. Advantage is our, uh, AI powered.

A digital experience platform. Interesting. And it’s more than just a, a portal. It is an intelligent interface that stitches together commerce, insights, automation, and enablement.

[00:06:11] Vince Menzione: Wow. Um, so I, ’cause I was gonna say marketplace, but it’s more than just even a marketplace from that perspective, right?

[00:06:17] Peter Graber: Absolutely. It’s a very intelligent interface that is, provides a simplified experience. Um, one platform to handle all of your business. So when we look at, at the, at the future of distribution, we look at it really in three stages. It’s, it’s about the platform, right? So moving out of the, um, the back office from a distribution model standpoint, it into the front office as a growth engine for our partners, um, by offering digital experience tools.

Uh, second stage is, uh, AI and automation. Um, AI for intelligence to predict needs and, uh, automation to, uh, reduce friction and create a smarter, faster path to market.

[00:07:01] Vince Menzione: Fascinating.

[00:07:02] Peter Graber: And then the third piece is ecosystem enablement. It’s all about providing the new, that the full solution that’s going to produce business outcomes and not just focus on the product.

Advantage is built for all of that.

[00:07:14] Vince Menzione: So tell us, take me through ecosystem enablement. To me that’s taking multiple partners. Uh, on the path to the same customer. Is that, is that what it looks like?

[00:07:22] Peter Graber: Um, you know, the way I would define ecosystem enablement is when you look at the product portfolio and bringing it all together under one platform.

So when you look at the, the span of hardware services, sas, um, et cetera, being able to provide that in one unified platform seamlessly. Um, without any friction. Yeah.

[00:07:44] Vince Menzione: And I think one of the things that dis distinguishes Ingram is sort of the pedigree of the business in that you’re not just software, you’re software and hardware, you’re all things to the customer.

Correct. And if I think about MSPs, the old days was that we worried about boxes and cables and things like that, right? That’s what you delivered. Now in this new world of ai, you’re delivering agent ai, you’re delivering. Uh, cloud, you’re delivering all the different solutions from ISPs. So they’re coming to your portal, they’re coming to your solution set, and they’re able to deliver all that to their customers.

Is that, is that what I’m, the way it’s coming about a hundred percent. Yeah.

[00:08:19] Peter Graber: Seamless, um, easy path to provide operational efficiency, but also strategic growth.

[00:08:26] Vince Menzione: Nice. And it is strategic in that you’re able to support that partner. And add anything they need to do for that customer, not just one point of the, of the spear.

Yeah.

[00:08:39] Peter Graber: So if you look at the dis, the traditional distri distribution MO model that you talked about in the beginning, a hundred percent, that’s not going away. Right? And you know, obviously there’s a lot of talk about the cloud and. Subscription models, recurring revenue. That’s right. That’s certainly important.

But hardware’s not going away either. It’s not going

[00:08:58] Vince Menzione: away. I still need servers on site. I still need other technologies that I’m utilizing.

[00:09:03] Peter Graber: A hundred percent. So how do you create a platform that brings all of that together under one seamless, intuitive interface that removes the friction for our partners, and that’s what Advantage does.

[00:09:13] Vince Menzione: It’s fascinating. Tell us a little bit about how Ingram is structured, like number of partners, like size of the organization. We didn’t get into the details. Just I think from a framing perspective for everybody, it’d be good to cover some of that. I mean, from

[00:09:26] Peter Graber: a, from a global standpoint, I mean I obviously we’re a $50 billion plus organization, um, you know, serving servicing.

Thousands of, of partners, all, all partner types, whether it’s an SMB, mid-market enterprise, um, CSPs, MSPs, um, et cetera, you name it. Um, we, we service that, uh, full portfolio.

[00:09:50] Vince Menzione: Let’s, I, I wanna jo, dive in on the solution. I think we have a graphic here about Xan. I was thinking maybe we could talk about how it’s helping the market and how it’s unique, uh, and maybe differentiate it a little bit too.

’cause I think this is an opportunity to stand out in a big way. Sure. Uh, Ingram brings a set of skills and capabilities. As well as, uh, a portfolio of vendors that you help scale and bring to the market, the s and b market. I think about specifically of one that’s going through incredible growth. I look at the MSP myself and I go, there is a tremendous transformational moment.

Now, I’ve been in many of these events. I’ve seen some of and met with some of these MSPs and they’re living in the past. There are organizations that maybe worked in Telco, worked in other markets, break fix. But the customer is not there anymore. The customer is on this transformational journey with agentic AI and layering multiple is V solutions in and pulling it all together for a customer.

Right? So this is what you do.

[00:10:53] Peter Graber: Absolutely. And you know, MSPs need help. To simplify things. Yeah. You know, and that, that’s what’s unique about the, about what we’re bringing and how we’re helping the market in very simple terms, in very, very powerful ways. Because advantage just simplifies everything, creates a faster path to market and accelerates growth.

At the end of the day, you know what, what Advantage is really doing, it’s taking a, a very fragmented, messy, um. Slow manual process and modernizing it under one platform.

[00:11:28] Vince Menzione: It’s fascinating.

[00:11:28] Peter Graber: Um, you know, if you think about, um, the things that the MSPs have to deal with on a daily basis, um. And, and, and we, we’ve kind of talked about it in terms of, um, you know, managing renewals, um, putting multi configurations together, figuring out how to order ’em, produce ’em.

And they’re oftentimes, our MSPs are doing it through multiple systems Yeah. And manual processes. Um. Advantage, simplifies all that under one platform. It’s very intuitive. Um, it offers recommendations, cross-sell, upsell opportunities to help them grow their business. Um. So to to, to answer your question, there’s uh, a lot of things that are happening with Advantage, um, especially when we look across the industry and what’s unique about Ingram Micro and what we bring to the market is, um, our size and our scale.

[00:12:23] Vince Menzione: Yeah.

[00:12:23] Peter Graber: And the fact that, um, we have, uh, the ability to have a global reach, a vast, vast product portfolio. And, um, the ability to, um. To bring that all together under one platform is pretty powerful.

[00:12:39] Vince Menzione: Under one platform, $50 billion company. Correct. Yeah. So that, that, that alone sets you up. Oops. I’m sorry. I’m just popping up a couple of slides here.

Um, yeah, so, uh, incredible opportunity for our, our partners that, oops, I’m one slide ahead. I’m, I’m moving quickly. There’s something’s happening. Either it’s going fast or I’m going slow. One or the other. Um, maybe it’s the end of the day type of thing. Yeah, that’s right. But yeah, just incredible opportunity for partners to take advantage of this.

Uh, these are organizations that are fairly less complex. Let’s say some of these MSPs are smaller, although we’re starting to see this aggregation. We have MSPs that are now growing to billion dollar companies. But then the ability to serve this customer, this SMB market, in a very unique way, is the way I’m, I’m, I’m reading what you’re having to say.

[00:13:24] Peter Graber: Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. You think about MSPs and, and we, we talked about it in terms of. Needing to simplify everything. And if you, we, we talked about the multiple, multiple systems that they use and, and many times, um, they have their own systems, whether they’re ERPs or CRMs and things like that.

Uh, one of the things that is very unique about Advantage is you can actually plug it in to your. You don’t have to. An MSP doesn’t have to go outta their system to take advantage of all of the goodness of an AI powered model. Um, you can plug it into your ERP, you can plug it into your RM, RMM, um, et cetera.

And. Everything’s at your

[00:14:04] Vince Menzione: fingertips. It’ll be seamlessly integrated with your, your complete solutions inside, inside your organization. So these organizations struggle in many respects as well, right? So these are companies that are the precipice of growth in my perspective. They are, there’s a huge opportunity for them to grow.

There’s a market, this SMB market is going to, we had the conversation with Alistair talking about, we call it this smec, which is enterprise and channel, but that gets to be in that SMB market is, is relatively small, but they’re still very complex and, and how they need to drive it. A lot of these organizations do struggle with how to go to market though.

Right. And so we were gonna, we were asking Ashley, Christine Mulcahy to join us up on stage. Christine is the founder and CEO of Content Gen. And her company helps a lot of the partners in your ecosystem to be more successful, to have a stronger go to market. So I’m excited to welcome Christine Mulcahy to join us.

And we’re gonna continue the conversation ’cause we haven’t really spent a lot of time. We talked about go to market from the Microsoft lens. We talked about how partners can do a lot of things, but we really haven’t. Touched on this really important subject, uh, what we need to do with these, uh, with these organizations.

So it’s, uh, great to see you, my friend.

[00:15:20] Christine Mulcahy: Great, thank you.

[00:15:21] Vince Menzione: And, uh, why don’t you introduce yourself, Christine, and what content Gen is all about and what your organization does.

[00:15:26] Christine Mulcahy: Sure. So I’m Christine Muli. I’m the founder and CEO of Content Gen, which is. An automated content development platform really focused on the partner channel.

I’ve been working at Microsoft and in the channel for the last 23 years, um, developing go to market materials, doing a lot of the consulting that you see here, um, in the workshops in the afternoon about that joint value proposition, the better together story, and we recognize that there’s a. Massive need for content marketing.

You know, partners get their stories, they get their solutions built, they put them in the marketplaces. They have kind of those three bare minimum pieces of content to get them listed and think, why aren’t the leads coming? And why aren’t I, are my leads seeing many ROI? Where’s my revenue? And the fact is that that’s just, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

You have to be able to then tell your story and not just your two customer story, but your two partner story. And we’ve heard a lot about, um, marketplaces and all of the different, uh, partners in those marketplaces. You’ve got your platform partners, you’ve got your integration partners, your build with partners, and your reseller channel partners, and they all.

Need something different from you. They, you’ve gotta align your messaging with the platform partners. And then you’ve got to tell a better together, you know, what makes us sticky? How could we go, uh, um, attack customer sales together, and then what’s the, you know, what’s in it for resellers? And you need different stories for each of them, and that requires a different set of content for each of them.

And content is. Ridiculously expensive. Yeah. ’cause you need a dozen pieces of content to lead a buyer through a journey or a partner through a journey. And so, um, it’s fantastic that AI has come along, but you’re still, you know, if you’re just using Chad GPT to create content, you still have to create every single piece of content.

And so content gen massively simplifies that process for partners and helps them create content together without all of the back and forth and rev cycles and what have you. And so I love the term you were talking about earlier, the, um, ecosystem enablement. Yeah. Somebody should trademark that because that’s what we need to do.

We’ve gotta enable, you know, you’ve gotta tell your two customer story, you’ve gotta enable your partners, and then you’ve gotta enable your sellers to know how to sell your solution. Because that’s the magic of these ecosystems. Mm-hmm. Is that you can connect all those people, but until you tell them what, you can’t just say, here’s my two customer brochure.

Go sell it. Right. They need to know why. What’s that value prop?

[00:17:59] Vince Menzione: So how do you help partners work with organizations like Ingram and their solution and platform?

[00:18:05] Christine Mulcahy: So we, you know, we have done all of our work in the Microsoft Partner channel in the past. Yes, yes. Um, but really, you know, the, this new platform at Ingram is fantastic because it’s not only a marketplace, but it’s connecting that partner to partner story and providing opportunities for partners to work together.

So really, I mean, the tool can be used, content gen can be used by, um. Um, partners in channels where we can work with Ingram and say, okay, well what’s the services story that you want to put out there through your channel? Mm-hmm. And then we can build that into the tool and say, okay, so if you need proof points or you need, you know, industry trends, or you wanna really tell the story of your.

Services, then the partners can go out, build their own content. It’s partner branded, it’s partner, you know, look and feel messaging led, and then they can pull in those, um, those messaging pieces so that they can align with their platform partner and tell the story.

[00:19:05] Vince Menzione: Very fascinating. Fascinating. So, um, how should MSPs and Partners position derive success with Microsoft Ingram?

How would you, how would you position them for success?

[00:19:19] Christine Mulcahy: Well, I think that. The ecosystem is moving so fast and every time we turn around there’s a new solution popping up. Mm-hmm. And what I have learned, you know, I’ve been consulting on the channel for decades, but now on the opposite side as a partner, um, trying to navigate it, it’s a whole new world.

And so I would say I’ve learned, you know, also being a software developer is very different from being a marketing consultant. Um, so I’ve learned that you’ve learned

[00:19:47] Vince Menzione: that. Front end,

[00:19:48] Christine Mulcahy: there’s a huge need. You know, we kind of talked about like Jay Mc, Bain’s concept of the seven partners that you need to work with.

Yes.

[00:19:54] Vince Menzione: The seven seats at the table we like to talk in about. Yeah.

[00:19:58] Christine Mulcahy: And I, it just, I, I knew, but I didn’t know, I didn’t internalize it like I should have gone out and looked for help in the. In the ecosystem long before I ended up developing with the developer that I worked with. Right. Or, um, at the last Ultimate Partner event, I was sitting at a table with Cloud Atlas and Justin asked me, well, how did you, um, who helped you get listed in the marketplace?

And I thought, well, we had to go figure it out ourselves. I didn’t, it didn’t even occur to me that there were partners that could have helped me with that, you know? So I’d say, you know, if you’re. Any type of partner in the ecosystem buy into these platforms because they, there’s a lot of smart people building them and doing all the work for you so that you don’t have to figure that out as part of the rest of your biz dev strategy.

And you can just focus on what you do well.

[00:20:43] Vince Menzione: Nice.

[00:20:43] Christine Mulcahy: It’ll change your life.

[00:20:45] Vince Menzione: So we’ve got the best, like a better together story here. It feels like. I think so too, Peter. Yep. We’ve got this incredible platform that you’ve built that allows these MSPs to get into the s and b market more effectively. Mm-hmm.

And there’s. Tens, hundreds of thousands of these organizations in the SMB market, right, that have certain size and scale. And then Christine, we’ve got your capabilities to help reach those, reach those audiences more effectively.

[00:21:10] Peter Graber: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:11] Vince Menzione: Yep.

[00:21:12] Peter Graber: I, you know, I, and I would say this too, is, um. You know, there, there’s two things you talk about enablement and things like that.

You know, when you, when you break it down, it come, I, I think it comes down to two things for a, a partner is simplified management and, and strategic growth, smarter growth. And once you solve for those from a simplified management, taking the friction out of the business and helping them from an operational flow standpoint, and then if you can point them in the right direction with AI and insights and how they grow their business.

Mm-hmm. Yes. Is those are the two biggest points. And then you bring enablement on top of that. Mm-hmm. In terms of continuing to grow their business from a, a, a product standpoint, a knowledge standpoint, um, understanding where to align their resources more effectively. Mm-hmm. Put marketing on top of that and that’s a, a very good recipe for success.

[00:22:06] Vince Menzione: Sounds, sounds terrific. Actually. And I think this market opportunity is huge. Right now. Ingram is coming about at very differentiated. You’re, you’re providing all the tools and resources I need as an MSP to be successful both within your platform as well as the vendors supporting your platform. And then content gen is helping me go to market in more effective ways.

[00:22:28] Christine Mulcahy: Yeah, and I think one of the other topics that I just had in the hallway conversation, um, was that, you know, content marketing is extremely expensive. Yeah. To create a campaign, you know, you’re spending $30,000 on your two customer campaign and then another 30 on your two partner, and then the messaging isn’t right.

And you need to tweak it and you’ve gotta go. And agencies are expensive and we can’t afford that anymore, you know? There was just a Gartner, um, industry trends report the other day that said, by 2028, 70% of marketing budgets will be spent on offline events like this.

[00:22:58] Intro: Interesting. Yeah. You know, but you

[00:22:58] Christine Mulcahy: still have to have a digital presence.

Yeah. You still have to have content to tell your story. They’re just not going to. Spend that much anymore. So you’ve gotta bring those costs down. And with a tool like Content Gen, you can create all that content and then you can ab test it. And if you wanna tweak it, you go and just modify it a little bit or clone that campaign and then change the messaging for the partner audience and just, you know, you can keep telling the story in different ways over and over again because you’ve got the content all there already in your platform.

[00:23:28] Vince Menzione: Peter, where can partners in the room and other partners watching us learn more about your solution and how do they, how do they engage with you and the team?

[00:23:38] Peter Graber: So I think most partners that have a relationship with Ingram know who their main points of contact are from a, from a sales perspective. Okay. Um.

You know, I, I think the best way to learn more about that obviously is you can Google, you can look it up online, et cetera. Yeah. But I think the best way to do that is to contact your Ingram Micro Associates that you deal with on a daily basis, and they can walk you through not only what we’re doing from an advantage and platform standpoint, but all of the services that we’re bringing to market, all of the tools that we’re equipping our MSPs with to help them grow their market, um, more strategically.

There is a boatload of information that we can download. I could probably spend a half a day talking about everything that we can bring to market from a standpoint.

[00:24:23] Vince Menzione: Very cool. But we can Google all that information and get it. We can bing it too. ’cause we’re in a Microsoft facility. They still bing around.

But How about from your side, Christine? I.

[00:24:32] Christine Mulcahy: Uh, grab me in the hallway content gen.com. Uh, you can go take a, you can sign up for a free trial right now. Yeah. Um, there’s contact information on the website. We can do a demo and get, and you’re both

[00:24:44] Vince Menzione: utilizing ai really. We talked about AI so much. Gentech ai, you’re both utilizing AI and Gentech AI to drive these solution sets mm-hmm.

And make for a better experience for these partners, right. Ly. So you’re both doing that in a big way? Yes. Yes. Great. Yep. I want to thank you both. Uh, this has been incredible in terms of sharing the information. I think there’s an awareness about what you’re doing, what Ingram’s doing, what content Jen is doing, and we are about lunchtime and I know that people are like really dying to eat.

It’s Friday afternoon, it’s been a long week, and I want to thank all the people for sticking around and spending some time. I want to thank you both for Absolutely. Thank you, spending time with us today. So thank you so much for being here. Thank.

Thanks for tuning into this episode of Ultimate Guide to Partnering. We’re bringing these episodes to you to help you level up your strategy. If you haven’t yet, now’s the time to take action and think about joining our community. We created a unique place, UPX or Ultimate partner experience where leaders come to learn from each other.

It’s more than a community. It’s your competitive edge. With insider insights, real-time education, and direct access to people who are driving the ecosystem forward. UPX helps you get results, and we’re just getting started. We’ve got big plans for you this summer as we’re taking this studio, and we’ll be hosting livestream and digital events here, and it’s all coming to you soon.

So visit our website, the ultimate partner.com to learn more and join us. Now’s the time to take your partnerships to the next level.

Join Peter Grabber from Ingram Micro and Christine Mulcahy from Content Gen as they unveil a powerful synergy transforming the MSP and SMB landscape. Peter details Ingram Micro’s evolution from a traditional distributor to a “platform first, experience-driven company” with their AI-powered Advantage platform, seamlessly integrating commerce, insights, automation, and enablement for multi-vendor, multi-solution environments. Christine then introduces Content Gen, an automated content development platform leveraging AI to drastically reduce the cost and complexity of content marketing for partners, enabling them to tell compelling “better together” stories and accelerate their go-to-market. This session highlights how these innovations are providing MSPs with simplified management and strategic growth, crucial for navigating the complex world of AI, hardware, and software solutions.

Unlock the secrets to explosive growth in the digital landscape! 

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Is your business ready for 2026?

Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Podcast.

Join Vince and Hayley McSpirit from PAX8 as they explore the immense opportunities within the Small and Medium Business (SMB) space, particularly through the lens of cloud marketplaces. This session delves into how PAX8 is disrupting the traditional channel by being a cloud-first organization , empowering MSPs and SMBs to rapidly adopt and leverage AI, often quicker than larger enterprises. Discover the evolving role of MSPs , the power of community-first approaches , and how marketplaces are becoming the critical platform for delivering comprehensive, integrated solutions to this underserved yet highly lucrative market.

Key Takeaways

The SMB market represents a significant and often underserved opportunity for cloud and AI adoption.

If you’re ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community. At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins.

.

Key Tags:

SMB market , MSPs , PAX8 , cloud marketplace , AI transformation , channel disruption , cloud-first , digital natives , software development companies , ISVs , community-first , customer lifecycle , agentic AI , business growth , technology adoption , partner ecosystem , Microsoft , innovation , procurement, cybersecurity, data security , unified solutions

Transcription:

[00:00:00] Hayley McSpirit: And as the new wave of AI as well has come in and, and we see MSPs and SMBs at the forefront of that, to be able to transform far quicker honestly than enterprises. And so we think that we are best placed to, to be doing that.

[00:00:18] Vince Menzione: We believe this time is like no other. We believe we refer to these as the tectonic shifts,

[00:00:24] Intro: all the hyperscalers in the world, if you add them all together.

Managed services will be one and a half times larger because it is the customer buying behavior that has created a need for all of us to rethink our models. Until we have data quality, the effectiveness of AI cannot be realized and effectiveness of the partnerships cannot be realized. Can you figure out, first, what your purpose is and how Microsoft can support your purpose and how you can support Microsoft purpose?

Now we have a partnership. It’s the ultimate partnership.

[00:00:56] Vince Menzione: Welcome to The Ultimate Guide to Partnering. I’m Vince Menzi, own your host, and my mission is to help leaders like you achieve your greatest results through successful partnering. We just came off Ultimate Partner Live at Microsoft Redmond Campus, our most powerful event.

Yet, over two days, we gathered top leaders to tackle the real shifts shaping our industry. If you weren’t in the room. This episode featuring Haley McSpirit, the SVP of Pax eight, brings us right to the edge of what’s next in the SMB segment. Let’s dive in. So this is gonna be an incredible session. We have, uh, the next half hour or so, you’ve heard me talk about this moment right now in the SMB space in a big way.

We’ve talked about marketplaces, the marketplace moment. It’s continuing to evolve. You heard about, about the incredible investments you see. You know, it’s kind of the tip of the spear with Cy talking about it, but you also heard Sandy talk about this as well, just this incredible investment opportunity around marketplaces.

There’s another area where marketplaces are having another significant impact, and this is in the SMB business, right? We thought about the s and i, I’ll just share, as a Microsoft executive, we didn’t quite know how to manage this SMB business when I was a, a partner leader GM at Microsoft, uh, it’s, it’s, it’s handled very well.

But there are organizations that do an even more incredible job and there’s a huge opportunity in this MSP space. In fact, there’s gonna be a workshop on MSPs. Hopefully you’ll be able to attend that session. Uh, but we wanted to get the market leaders in the room and we were very fortunate to have PAX eight in the room.

And Haley McSpirit is gonna join me up on stage really talking about the future. Of SMBs and this marketplace opportunity ahead of us. And for those of you who don’t know PAX eight, I’ll have Haley take us through it. But I’m, I’m delighted to invite ha Mc spirit to the stage. Great to have her here. She didn’t have to travel as far as some of us.

Great to see you, my friend. Good to see you. Uh, you’re gonna be here and I’m gonna be on this side of you. Thank you. Uh, we got to work together at Microsoft, so it’s great to have you here.

[00:03:04] Hayley McSpirit: Thank you for having me.

[00:03:04] Vince Menzione: Um, you were in an incredibly innovative portion of Microsoft. I’ll tell you. You tell your story.

Yeah. But, uh, we got to interact when I was, uh, after I left Microsoft, in fact, and was leading a large ISVs organization. So, so great to have you in the room.

[00:03:19] Hayley McSpirit: Yeah. Thank you for having me, uh,

[00:03:19] Vince Menzione: up on the live stream as well. Yeah. Uh, great opportunity for discussion today, so I’m so glad you could join us.

[00:03:25] Hayley McSpirit: Thank you. Thank you for having me. So where would you like to start?

[00:03:29] Vince Menzione: Um, you know, I’ve been talking about PAX eight. Mm-hmm. I, I do think that PAX eight leaned in, in a very significant way on the SMB market. Uh, how are you different than the rest of the channel, though? And it seems like the evolution of PAX eight is important here and how the company evolved and where, where it’s going.

But, uh, you’re making waves in the market as well recently, and I think there’s some conversation we’ll have. Uh, we won’t trip any wires in this conversation, but, uh, let’s know that you’ve made a big noise in the market, which I think has been heard. Right. And, um, how does PAX eight see itself differently and what is the industry getting wrong about PAX eight?

[00:04:08] Hayley McSpirit: Yeah, well, so yeah, let’s, let’s say we like to make some waves and, uh, we’ve recently launched. Some brand campaigns Yes. Out there. Um, to disrupt the market. We are really going back to our roots in terms of how we like to be a disruptor, how we like to have a big place. And um, actually I think also. Put focus on the SMB.

Yes. So the SMB market is, um, an area which we thrive in, and which we see a huge opportunity. And so where we see a differentiator for us is we truly are a marketplace and we truly bring together what our partners, um, are looking for in terms of that best of breed technology and that complete customer lifecycle, which is the piece that I heard Nicole talk about earlier around how we really need to continue Dr.

Driving that. Um, and I think, you know, PAX Eight’s different because we are a cloud first organization as well, so we’re very much focused on that. And as the new wave of AI as well has come in and, and we see MSPs and SMBs at the forefront of that to be able to transform far quicker honestly than enterprises.

And so we think that we are best placed to, to be doing that as well.

[00:05:20] Vince Menzione: Yeah. You mentioned first of all the cloud. Approach is incredibly significant. And we’ve had this conversation backstage. Uh, I’ve been to some of the events where some of the SMB market comes, uh, some of the MSP market comes to, and it really isn’t cloud first.

It isn’t cloud significant. Mm-hmm. And I’ve been in the room speaking at some of these groups and some of these meetings where a lot of these organizations are kind of playing in the past. Right. And, um. It’s really great to see the embrace that Pax has had. And I’ve, I haven’t been to, I’m, I’m hoping to come to your event this June.

Oh, I hope to see, yeah. I’m gonna be there. This, it’s a great event this June, but I’ve heard they’re really happening, so I thought maybe you could talk about that a little bit. It’s almost like a, I don’t wanna use the word cult ’cause that’s always misinterpreted. Yeah. But there is a very strong, uh, engagement with the, with the partners in, at your events.

[00:06:06] Hayley McSpirit: Absolutely. So, um. I mean, it is a great event. I think that’s an opportunity to come together. And Community First has been such a driver for PAX eight around the MSPs out there and being able to support them in the enablement of their journey. Uh, and so we’ve, we’ve. Put a lot into that as a way of bringing partners together, help them understand where the market’s going.

Um, we’ve talked, uh, you, I’ve heard our CEO Scott Chaison talk about the AgTech AI and the future and had some very bold statements last year on stage around ai, which actually has sort of moved forward very quickly and, and so interesting. A little bit more of a visionary in terms of seeing where it’s going.

And I think that event is a way of us really. Starting off, it coincides a little bit with the end of the Microsoft fiscal year, beginning of the new ones, which is helpful as a big partner of ours, and we’re very grateful. And to be able to build that momentum into the next 12 months of supporting those partners through growth.

I mean, it’s, a lot of the sessions are focused on academy and focused on how do we help them build their business, um, and think about how do they integrate other solutions, um, as they grow. So. Yeah, it’s a great opportunity. It’s a great place to, um, come and hang out and spend time and get to know people, but also an opportunity to learn.

And one of the things that you may have seen or, or be aware of is we also launched last year our Voyager Alliances program, which is our way of helping partners see where they are on their journey.

[00:07:40] Intro: Interesting. And

[00:07:41] Hayley McSpirit: so that’s very much. Uh, helps, helps signify to the market and to our partners, how we can help them build their business and what’s available to them within the Pax PAX eight ecosystem of services and, and other things to take advantage of.

[00:07:55] Vince Menzione: So, PAX Eight’s not been in the market for a hundred years. Uh, you came into a mature marketplace. Mm-hmm. Probably less than a decade, maybe a decade ago,

[00:08:03] Hayley McSpirit: around about that. Yep.

[00:08:05] Vince Menzione: And what has made PAX eight. Different, like, how does PAX eight think about the market differently? How, how, how have you, how’s your approach been different or unique?

[00:08:13] Hayley McSpirit: Yeah. So, um. A distribution is an interesting word inside of the walls of Pax A. And we like to say that we are not distribution. Okay? We aren’t, we are a marketplace first. And uh, we have been very bold about how we position that in the market. Yes, and how we think about what we offer. And the reason why we see ourselves as differently is because we’re founded on a marketplace and a platform.

So if you hear any of those, the terminology, and when we think about the marketplace, that is the true moment of where the e-commerce comes together with the fulfillment and the whole lifecycle of that from a licensing point of view, as well as product features and functions. But then the extensibility of our platform is where we really see the difference.

So where we focus on the integration with third parties, where we are looking at. The enablement of what we call embedded marketplaces. So how do we help others come towards PAX eight and really, um, embrace the opportunity to enter into the SMB space, which for some is a little bit daunting or a little bit expensive.

Um, if you’re looking at building out into the true S of SMB. And so that’s where we see ourselves as different to the market. Okay. And that we are thinking truly about that and then underpinning it with ai.

[00:09:25] Vince Menzione: So the value you’re bringing to the partners software development. Companies mm-hmm. And the like that want to enter the space is you’re helping guide them into that SMB market.

[00:09:34] Hayley McSpirit: Absolutely. I

[00:09:35] Vince Menzione: look at, I look at some of the big ISVs that are in the room that have been, that’ll be talking at our event, and a lot of them don’t have a very strong SMB focus.

[00:09:43] Hayley McSpirit: Yep.

[00:09:43] Vince Menzione: So that’s where you come in. You help guide them through that process.

[00:09:46] Hayley McSpirit: Yeah, we do. So there is sort of two ways of looking at it when we think about SMB and what PAX eight can offer.

Yeah. One is, um, those partners as MSPs who want to serve the SMB on a, on a SMB size and stature themselves. So how do we help them continue to grow their business directly as our hero in this, in this story. But then when we look at those, um, software houses, software development houses, or. Companies or ISVs or digital natives.

I think we’ve got lots of different words, but however we want to term it, um, and look at how they want to enter into the SMB market or perhaps we. We’ve configure how they think about the SMB market. We see ourselves in a pivotable spot because we understand we live and breathe it every day. I mean, where I would say is we, we serve the underserved in terms of that market segment.

When I talk to Microsoft, they, they share that, you know, we are really thinking about SMB and I love Microsoft Daily. Um, but when I say, what’s SMB, they’re like. Well, a hundred seats and above, and I’m like, yeah, a hundred seats is, is still a little big when we think about our average customers. So there are lots of really small businesses out there.

Um, and so what we’re, what we’re positioning is, um. Help us, uh, let us help you by being your SMB custodian. Let’s be your SMB as a service solution. How we can create either a modular approach that suits your business, um, or a complete package of, of service offerings that we can give to you, uh, that enables you to essentially.

Park that SMB business outside of your day to day, um, and alleviate some of that overhead costs for yourselves, and then we would partner to run that. But

[00:11:28] Vince Menzione: Interesting. You

[00:11:29] Hayley McSpirit: know, you can take it different ways.

[00:11:30] Vince Menzione: Yeah, no, I, it’s, it’s very, it’s fascinating to me, in fact, because, um. Nicole was on first this morning mm-hmm.

Talking about this market, right. This small medium market and SM BSMB market. Mm-hmm. And that is, it is a rich opportunity area. It’s, and that, uh, most partners shy away from it because they don’t know how to address it. Mm-hmm. Or they try and address, address it with the wrong set of skills or the right, wrong set of investments.

Mm-hmm. Like direct sellers. Mm-hmm. Going on a hundred. Person organizations mm-hmm. Are pretty small. So there’s some things you do within the organization to help drive that. Right. How do you, how do you, how do you address the, let’s talk about the SM SMBs themselves. Yeah. The, uh, let’s talk about them as a group of organizations.

How do you think about the MSPs themselves?

[00:12:15] Hayley McSpirit: The MSPs or the SMBs, or. Well,

[00:12:17] Vince Menzione: let’s talk about MSPs. I’m sorry. Yeah, no, that’s okay. I was conflating the terminology here, but these are, these are organizations that are managed service providers.

[00:12:25] Hayley McSpirit: That’s right. Yep.

[00:12:26] Vince Menzione: And the, the kind of the growth of the SP market started with.

The, the hardware business. Right. It was like, I have a laptop or I have like a 50 laptops and somebody needs to come service me.

[00:12:37] Intro: Yep,

[00:12:38] Vince Menzione: yep. And it was very old, old it, old school it mm-hmm. Is the way I would look at it. Mm-hmm. How do you think about that market today?

[00:12:45] Hayley McSpirit: Yeah, so it’s an interesting one. Um, I actually heard the, the term, if you’ve heard some that boots slammers or like

[00:12:51] Vince Menzione: boot slams.

[00:12:52] Hayley McSpirit: I think it’s that car, but you know, like

[00:12:53] Vince Menzione: it’s not this type of boot. Okay. No. Maybe I’m, maybe

[00:12:56] Hayley McSpirit: it’s like my British isms coming out, but essentially, you know. The, the traveling salesman kind? Yeah, the original, uh, reseller. The, how do I just fix break, fix? What’s that? You know, going through and just servicing individual customers with, um, immediate support needs.

Um, and then as you look now and the evolution of the MSP, it really is that complete services package. Yeah. Um, and we have some. Really fascinating conversations right now going on with some of our, um, MSPs who are coming to us and saying, look, AI agents, we, we get it. We’re on board. We wanna do it. Help.

Help us create those. Mm-hmm. And help us resell those through your marketplace. Interesting, interesting. And how quickly can you do that Pax? Eight. And why are you not doing it now? Right. Like so, which we are, we’re starting, we are moving very quickly and we’ve created a, um, internal AI transformation office where we are research development creating.

And how do we repackage that quickly and. Even faster, uh, so that we can provide that context. And also guidance for the MSPs because they’re, they look to us and say, well, you know, Microsoft and others, they’re out there talking about the world of ai. Um, help us become that. I mean, we truly believe, um, and a year ago I would’ve said, I don’t think I do believe, but now I do that some one day that there’ll be a completely autonomous.

MSP that will not have, as an AI agent, that will not have people, it will just be running on its own. So I think interesting. I think we gotta be moving with the times, and I think that’s where the MSP evolution of that next generation of MSP is coming faster than ever. So

[00:14:37] Vince Menzione: it makes sense. And it also from a scale perspective makes a tremendous amount of sense.

We had Sandy and Pat up here a little bit earlier talking about Agen ai. Mm-hmm. Yep. And some of these ISVs and some of these organizations and. Also how ISVs and sis are emerging capabilities. Yep. In some respects, you, you replace that SI component, right? You take that ISV solution set. And layer it down to the MSP so they can deliver it to the customer.

Is that what I understand?

[00:15:02] Hayley McSpirit: Yeah. There’s that. I mean, I also think that the lines, the, the lines between distinction of partner types is blurring. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I think, I think that’s, no, but I think it’s, it’s interesting to see, I mean, when you, when you reference. Uh, the MSP now evolving. I actually think the MSP is becoming an ISV and is becoming a, a systems integrator.

And they, they’re becoming all of these things because of the opportunity out there with what’s available in terms of the tech and also in terms of what the market’s asking. Um, and I think that SMBs, SMBs size of organization and MSPs serving the SB are the ones that are gonna be there first. Um, I think that you, you see copilot chat and we.

We engage with co-pilot chat and we think it’s great. We’re, we’re customer zero on co-pilot, so we are all in. Very nice. Um, but the other component is we, we are seeing our MSPs actually move past chat because they’re like, yeah, well I don’t, I’m, I’m all in. Right. So I don’t need to start with the chat.

Yeah. Whereas for the enterprise, that’s a little different. There’s a need to kind of bring that phased approach in because you’ve got a lot more investment to make. You’ve got a lot more processes to deal with. Yeah. So yeah, we’re kind of all in there.

[00:16:15] Vince Menzione: So where’s it heading? I. So talk about the future

[00:16:18] Hayley McSpirit: robots.

No, I dunno. Where is it heading? Um, I mean, it might, uh, the, uh, you know, for us it’s how do we nail the, what is the value proposition of AI solutions for s SMBs and for Ms. P serving. The SMB and how quickly can we get there and how can we ensure that it is safe? And the secureness to that. I think there was a conversation earlier about the data and getting the data right.

I mean, that’s our number one blocker out there. Um, making sure that data’s secure and data is right, so we can make it, make headway in that. But, um, we we’re, we’re very much in the, in the exciting space, so.

[00:17:01] Vince Menzione: So, um, I know you’re gonna talk about this event that’s coming up in June, which I’m thrilled to join you at.

Uh, tell us more about it and why the partners here and that are watching us on the livestream should join us.

[00:17:14] Hayley McSpirit: Yeah, absolutely. So Beyond is our flagship event and uh, it’s taken place in Denver. The eighth through 10th. Um, we also have beyond, uh, in EA as well, which happens later on in the year, in the October timeframe.

And this is our, I mean, it’s, it’s already 75% sold out, which is fabulous. Wow. That’s fantastic. We are just really excited to, to have such an amazing group of, uh, partners attend and, you know, signed up as soon as, as beyond was over last year. We have, um, over a hundred ISVs, our vendors, um, participating. We, um, really.

We’ve brought in some amazing speakers, uh, in terms of industry speakers.

[00:17:57] Vince Menzione: I’ve heard some names, some very interesting names. Yeah, Malcolm Gladwell was with us last

[00:18:00] Hayley McSpirit: year and, um, some Olympians as well on stage, which is always wonderful. But then in terms of the topic and content, it’s, it is about bringing the community together.

It is about talking about the trends and really how do we enable those MSPs, um, and what can they do to, to dig into the, into the data as well as. Be hands on. So there’s a lot of enablement sessions. It’s a great opportunity to really get a sense of what SMB communities are all about. Um, and it’s just, it’s just a really fun, I mean, I’ve been to, and I’m sure you have, I’ve been to a lot of Microsoft events, which are I have, which fabulous.

Um, but I think we do it

[00:18:38] Vince Menzione: better. Yeah. You’ve got some amazing speakers this year as well. Yeah. Got

[00:18:41] Hayley McSpirit: some good speakers.

[00:18:42] Vince Menzione: I don’t want to, I don’t want to tip my hat that I know about some of the names that’ll be there.

[00:18:46] Hayley McSpirit: I know, but it’s perfect. It,

[00:18:48] Vince Menzione: yeah. And then we also have our Ms. P event, uh, a session that’s going on this afternoon and tomorrow.

So hopefully you’ll have a chance to jump in with some of our leaders.

[00:18:55] Hayley McSpirit: Absolutely. Absolutely. Because

[00:18:56] Vince Menzione: I do think there’s a huge opportunity for organizations to come on board in a bigger way.

[00:19:00] Hayley McSpirit: I,

[00:19:01] Vince Menzione: yeah,

[00:19:01] Hayley McSpirit: would love those conversations. I mean, we are really seeing an interest with those, those enterprise ISVs that are just like, I would love to have a conversation about how I can enter this SMB space and we can do everything from design consulting to pre and post sale to customer lifecycle management.

It’s, it’s. S the whole package, um, of that SMB as a service that we, we just would love to, you know, have more conversations, engage and, and also learn like what else are we seeing out there? What else can we learn from others? So. Yeah.

[00:19:31] Vince Menzione: Well, we’re delighted to have you today. Thank you. Thank, hopefully you get some time to spend.

I know there’s a lot of networking happening outside this room as well as inside this room, so hopefully we get to spend some time with our ultimate partner members here today. I’m

[00:19:41] Hayley McSpirit: excited to do so. Yeah. Thank you for having me. So great to have

[00:19:43] Vince Menzione: you, Hailey.

[00:19:44] Hayley McSpirit: Yeah,

[00:19:44] Vince Menzione: thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. So great to have you.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks for tuning into this episode of Ultimate Eye to Partnering. We’re bringing these episodes to you to help you level up your strategy If you haven’t yet. Now’s the time to take action and think about joining our community. We created a unique place, UPX or Ultimate Partner Experience where leaders come to learn from each other.

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So visit our website, the ultimate partner.com to learn more and join us. Now’s the time to take your partnerships to the next level.

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Is your business ready for 2026?

Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Podcast.

Join industry leaders Vince Menzione, Scott Sacket, Per Werngren, and Nabil Aitonumeziane as they discuss the evolution of MSPs, the critical role of AI readiness, the power of strategic partnerships within the Microsoft ecosystem, and the growing importance of co-selling and digital marketplaces. Learn actionable strategies for profitability, navigating new buying behaviors, and becoming an “ultimate MSP” by focusing on outcomes, building trust, and embracing community.

Key Takeaways

If you’re ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community. At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins.

MSP,Managed Services,AI,Artificial Intelligence,Microsoft ecosystem,cloud transformation,hyperscalers,marketplace,co-selling,partner strategy,Nabil Aitonumeziane,Scott Sacket,Per Werngren,Vince Menzione,AppPoint,FSI strategy,Ultimate Partner,channel growth,digital buying,data security,governance,copilot,agentic AI,recurring revenue,business model,profitability,trusted advisors,community building,IT business,technology evolution,strategic partnerships

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Vince Menzione: We believe this time is like no other. We, we refer to these as the tectonic shifts,

[00:00:08] Intro: all the hyperscalers in the world, if you add them all together. Managed services will be one and a half times larger because it is the customer buying behavior that has created the need for all of us to rethink our models.

Until we have data quality, the effectiveness of AI cannot be realized and effectiveness of the partnerships cannot be realized. Can you figure out, first, what your purpose is and how Microsoft can support your purpose and how you can support Microsoft purpose? Now we have a partnership. It’s the ultimate partnership.

[00:00:42] Vince Menzione: Good morning. I’m Vince Manzione, the CEO of Ultimate partner, and the host of the Ultimate Guide to Partnering Podcast. And I’m thrilled to be back in the studio here in Boca Raton. We have a lot of stories about Boca Raton. It is really the seminal point in the start of this ecosystem we all care about.

It’s also where we host the Ultimate Eye to Partnering podcast where we host our events, and we’re gonna do our very first live stream here today. Uh, it’s designed for you to achieve incredible success as a partner. We’re working with hyperscalers like Microsoft. Our topic today is becoming the ultimate MSP.

This is a topic that we care deeply about as, as our guests do as well. And each of my guests that are here today, I am so privileged to have members of our community, friends, uh, people that I truly appreciate and admire who are here now, who feel the same and are so passionate on this subject. I wanna invite them each to say, introduce themselves and say a couple words about why they believe this MSP moment is so unique and why it’s so relevant to all of us today.

So s Scott, good to see you.

[00:01:49] Scott Sacket: Great to see you. So exciting to be here alive, right? Gotta be careful. So for those who have, I’ve not met yet. My name is Scott Sackett and I’m the senior Vice President of Partner Strategy at AAV Point. And, um, I’ve been in the channel ecosystem now for over 25 years. I was a partner, of course, I’ve been at AAV point, leading channel now for many years, um, almost 20 years.

And, um, this moment’s incredible, right? Um, you know, cloud really democratized what, what partners could do. And how to build up, um, and, and support many customers, small and large. And, and today, MSPs really are, um, the linchpin to how we build and, and, uh, manage it. So it’s an incredible moment for them and, and it’s only getting, uh, more important as things change and grow and evolve.

So exciting times.

[00:02:36] Vince Menzione: I love the linchpin comment ’cause it really holds it all together. I love that. And p Wgre, another great friend of ours, p uh, please take a moment and introduce yourself to our audience or all of our friends that are watching

[00:02:47] Per Werngren: us today on the line. Yes, thank you, Ian. It is a privilege to be here.

So I’m the CEO of Idex. We do AI and Azure operations. And why do I love MSPs? Well, I’ve been doing subscriptions all my life, and recurring revenue is such a beautiful thing because you start small, you sell a little bit. You sell more and you don’t lose what you have sold. You just keep on building and it all piles up.

Beautiful business model.

[00:03:16] Vince Menzione: I love it. I love it.

[00:03:19] Nabil Aitonumeziane: Right. Hi, great to see

[00:03:20] Vince Menzione: you, my friend.

[00:03:21] Nabil Aitonumeziane: Thanks for having me. I mean, it’s been, uh, amazing coming to Florida. To the Hot Florida. But, uh, I’m Nabil Ian. I’m the president of FSI strategy. We’re an MSP. Uh, we specialize in Microsoft. We’re a, uh, managed service provider, but, uh, we specialize a hundred percent in Microsoft, uh, technologies.

So thanks for having Well,

[00:03:41] Vince Menzione: and you are an MSP, right? Yes. We talk about this all the time and how you’ve evolved your company. You a case study. We are, but

[00:03:48] Nabil Aitonumeziane: we are not Your traditional MSP, which is. Managed service provider. We are more of the modernization solution partner ’cause we are trying to, uh, live in the AI era.

Yeah. World. So we had to change our name as well. How to help our customers, uh, move forward with this technology is moving very fast. So

[00:04:10] Vince Menzione: I’m gonna frame that and we’ll go right into, I’m gonna, I have, I’m gonna hit you with the first question, but you know, we talk about this tectonic shifts. That we’ve seen in our world, in our lives, and we’ve been talking about transformation and ultimate partner for many years.

It started back in my Microsoft days, 10 years leading the partner business for public sector and growing that organization during the clouds transformation. But we’ve been talking about a, a, the hyperscalers really at the center and really the, we talk about Boca, the fact that Bill Gates came down here in 1981 and signed an agreement with IBM really sparked this ecosystem.

There’s over a half a million just in the Microsoft ecosystem of partners. Probably well over a million if you put Google Cloud and AWS and, and you look at that center of the universe and we’ll talk about that center and how there are now seven seats at the table. But then, you know, we talked about the last couple years, AI really became a thing.

Chat, GBT started it all back in November, 2022. And now, you know, we’ve had this incredible transformation that we’re gonna talk about, why it’s so fundamental today. And why it’s even more important, and then also how marketplaces are so fundamental to success today that the buying behaviors have changed.

The millennials, the new buying persona, and they buy from, they’re very comfortable in marketplaces. We’re all more comfortable now hitting our phone three times and having a box show up at the end of the day, right? We’re all used to digital buying and it’s becoming the buy. The buying process has changed dramatically.

And the hyperscalers have all embraced this marketplace. But then what do you need? Fundamentally, in order to have success, you need to have engagements with those sellers. And that’s why co-selling is so critical and important. We’re gonna talk about that as also an important component. And then the hype.

We talk about this ecosystem and why you can’t go alone. And then we, we’ve been around ultimate partner. We created ultimate partner. ’cause we recognize that success is all about coming together. And I talk about the seven seats at the table because the buying persona is May now making a decision about driving a solution.

They’re not buying a one-off vendor solution. They’re creating a solution set, and they need multiple vendors to come together. And this conversation today is how MSPs need to embrace these tectonic shift. Nabeel, you’ve owned this successful MSP for many years. You said 25 years you’ve been in this business, which is incredible.

Long

[00:06:29] Nabil Aitonumeziane: time

[00:06:29] Vince Menzione: you don’t even look old enough to have been No. Been doing this for 25 years. Tell us what successes look like for you and your organization and what has the change been like? Can you speak to the change that we’ve been seeing?

[00:06:40] Nabil Aitonumeziane: So we have seen the big changes in the past 10 years when it comes to the MSP world.

Uh, we went, I think all of us in the MSP world, we came all from the break and fix model. To all you can eat, which became kind of very hard to kind of manage. But, uh, the past 10 years I’ve seen the MSP world really growing very fast because seeing the, the big companies out there, uh, ISVs, who are also now providing MSP services because.

All the big scalers, if you ask me, they are trying to cover it all. Yeah. Like, you know, take a customer from soup to nuts, help them with everything they need to do with technology. And that’s why we’re seeing more and more bigger player into the MSP uh, community these days. And it’s one of, I think, one of the fastest growing technology businesses out there.

I mean, I’ve been in it for 25 years and the past 10 years I’ve seen. Tens of thousands of companies that have came out of nowhere. So it’s becoming the hot business in the IT world. So, uh, the big change also that I see, it’s the technology that’s moving very fast. And I feel like the MSPs who are moving as fast as the technology is moving, they’re gonna be succeed.

They’re gonna succeed. But the ones who are waiting. Trying to figure out the whole AI era that we’re living in. Yeah, they’re gonna be left behind. Yes, because the train already has left the station. For the ai, it started, like you said earlier, November 20, 27, uh, 22, but co-pilot, it started for me, 2024 copilot came out of one of the, you know, AI technologies that came out there for Microsoft.

It was not the biggest success out there, but now with agents, they are fixing all the little issues that they had because, yeah. Anyway, I think we’re gonna have time to discuss AI a little deeper. Yes. And what’s going on with it. But those are the difference that I see. It’s, uh, it do not move fast enough and getting the ai, you know, trained today, you’re gonna be left behind.

As an MSPI,

[00:08:55] Vince Menzione: I am in violent agreement with you. You know, Scott, you’ve been at AppPoint for many years. I’ve, I’ve known AppPoint for close to two decades. And you know, you start off in the big enterprises, right? Big organizations, big public sector organizations, all the big government agencies use AppPoint technology.

What have you seen this shift now to, uh, to moving out beyond just the largest customers and how is AAV Point addressing that?

[00:09:21] Scott Sacket: Yeah, so it’s, it’s an incredible journey. Right. We started as a SharePoint, ISV. Yep. Uh, doing things like migration and backup and governance. Um, and the world changed drastically while we’ve been in business.

I mean, just past this past July, 24 years in business, publicly traded. Right. Uh, the last four years. Yep. Um. And what we saw evolve was cloud really changing the game for us. Um, on premise became Cloud. Cloud of course, grew from just SharePoint online for us to exchange online in OneDrive. And then Teams, oh my goodness, teams just blew up everything.

And when we started thinking about how we continue to evolve, our business partners became such an important and critical piece to how we grow. Because what was really expensive and complex for an SMB organization 20 years ago, server Farm, right? Really expensive hardware all of a sudden became a really simple service to flip a switch and just to log in.

And so as we were thinking about this ecosystem where SMB actually comprised of 50% ultimately of the market, how were we going to scale? Yes. How were we going to be able to bring benefit? To those types of customers, and when we really started digging into it, MSPs were not just important. They’re really the superhero.

Yeah. Right. They are the ones who are keeping that entire segment going and, and building out technology and exposing technology to them that they never had before. Because they have that sort of level of competency and expertise that many s and b customers don’t have. That’s right. And so we started really heavily investing in the MSP space over the last 10 years and not just taking our enterprise products and, and just handing it to, to, you know, MSPs and saying, okay, go figure it out.

But we repackaged the whole thing. We built it from the ground up. We built a platform that allows for scale and automation and service delivery. Which is just so unbelievably important as we move into this next era right. Of, of ai when you layer in security and governance. ’cause that’s what’s keeping people from actually realizing that vision.

[00:11:32] Vince Menzione: Yeah. You, you bring up some really great points. So I think back of the server being in the closet in the back of the room at the ss, the SMB organization and then this move to the cloud. This shift from the cloud started about eight, 10 years ago. Well, MM 365 drove Microsoft’s engagement, their Google Cloud as well.

But then Azure took off in a big way in these organizations. They finally have started to realize the benefits and I feel almost feel like the MSP community was sitting behind doing break fix on computers while the customers were saying, we need to engage and we need to embrace all this. And then you start thinking about data because if you are gonna do things like ai, which is now.

We talked about just the, the relevance of ai just the last couple years. You gotta get your data state right, and then if you’ve got data out there, you need to protect that data. And that’s where you, you know, you come in with all this set of tools. Right. So that point addresses all of

[00:12:24] Scott Sacket: this. The, the move to AI is been so challenging for so many customers and partners.

We have been building a lot of technology to help break down those barriers. That is by far the most requested and deployed service that we’re building for. Um, and we wanna solve that problem for our partners, right? Because we know once they get to AI, there’s so much goodness to unlock, right? And more productivity to unleash.

[00:12:52] Vince Menzione: And you enable these MSPs, right? Oh yeah. ’cause you bring the tools, you bring the systems and tools. Uh, you take out some of the complexity for them, but then you make them the superheroes in front of those customers.

[00:13:02] Scott Sacket: Absolutely. I mean, the whole idea is to get our partners to be at scale, to automate, to integrate with their existing technology right there.

Yep. Their rs, you know, their PSAs, their RMMs Right. The existing, uh, infrastructure and, and to ultimately build a better business. Right. And to make them so valuable to their customers that the stickiness is, is, you know, obvious.

[00:13:24] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Eric, you’ve been around. Partners for almost as long as I have, maybe even longer in some respects.

I mean, you were the, you were the founder of Micro, the Microsoft partner ecosystem. It’s it’s association back in the day. And so you’ve seen this evolution up, up, close and personal, right? With, within the companies that you’ve run, you’ve been a serial entrepreneur, what are you starting to see and what, what are the characteristics that the MSP’s watching today and maybe watching this either live stream or.

A recording of this, either on our YouTube channel or or on the podcast, what do they need to be doing differently? What are the characteristics that makes a successful or the ultimate MSP?

[00:14:06] Per Werngren: So, that’s a good question. And I don’t know how many days we got to answer that question, but we’ll start now. Uh,

[00:14:11] Vince Menzione: we’ll be here for a few days.

So

[00:14:13] Per Werngren: I would say that many MSPs, they give too much power to their technical people. Business decisions should be made by business people, and too many times technical people influence strategically important decisions that they should not have a say about. And that means that many MSPs, they have a product portfolio that is too broad, way too broad, and.

[00:14:46] Vince Menzione: That’s broad for our American listeners today, right?

[00:14:49] Per Werngren: I’m European and uh, that means that, um, uh, it is hard to entertain all the technologies that are involved. Yeah, I’m a big fan of Better Together. I want technologies to be integrated with each other because that saves cost and probably also give better outcomes for the customers and too many MSPs, they don’t dare standardize.

Instead they customize a little, little bit too much. And when you customize well, then you kind of lose the ness of being an MSP. The last thing is probably that, um, when you have a product portfolio that is too wide, you will never become really good at all the offerings. Instead, it is better to look at what should you produce in-house?

What can you produce in-house with good quality and good profitability? And then you find partners whose services that you resell. So this mix of, uh, creating your product portfolio and, uh, dare to kill your darlings. They’re to say no to producing everything in house. Try to become a little bit more narrow in what you do is one path to success and profitability is really bad among many MSPs.

[00:16:13] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Because they’re trying to be all things to all people.

[00:16:15] Per Werngren: Yes. If you try to be jack of all trades, well, you will never be successful. And, uh, that will hurt your profitability. That will also hurt the day when you want to exit your company.

[00:16:29] Vince Menzione: Yeah. So let’s talk about, ’cause this is really a, it’s winning and successful as an MSB, but a lot of this is around the Microsoft ecosystem today.

Neal’s organization, you would, what do you say? You eat, sleep, drink and bleed. Microsoft, is that it? Nabi, eat,

[00:16:43] Nabil Aitonumeziane: sleep,

breathe Microsoft.

[00:16:45] Vince Menzione: Breathe Microsoft. So what are like the quick wins for the MSPs out there? What can they be doing? What are, what are the things you’ve done in the deal within your organization?

We can talk, we can start top down with getting your organization right. Uh, I think P alluded to some of that as well. We can talk about like, engaging with the Microsoft Field organization, what, what, what seems to work.

[00:17:07] Nabil Aitonumeziane: It may also start, but stop thinking like a service provider. Yeah. As an ms. Yeah.

Alright. We are more of a, a strategic, you need to keep your mic up a little bit higher there. I’m getting, I’m sorry. Uh, that’s right. I dunno if you guys could hear me, but, uh, I feel like every MSP needs to stop thinking like a service provider and think more about the strategic partnership that they’re gonna build with the customers.

We’re here to help customer. And then one thing I think Scott used talk about, it’s. The sellers, uh, in the MSP world or in the technology world, they need to start talking more about business and stop talking about technology. Yeah. Because we are dealing with C executives.

[00:17:46] Vince Menzione: That’s right.

[00:17:46] Nabil Aitonumeziane: They are thinking more about how can we help the business move forward and grow, and how can they do more with less?

That’s why we need to have those con AI conversation. They’re more of business conversations than techno like technical conversation. You’re gonna confuse them. Because what we’re trying to do with the AI era, that’s why I think for all the MSPs out there, you need to get on ai. Now, yesterday, not today, yesterday, because our job now with our all our customers, we’re gonna help them navigate this whole AI era that we’re going through, all the confusions were out there, how can we help them?

What are the solutions that we can build? And then have them repeatable with different customers, with their ai. But if you’re not in the AI world today. You need to be in it, otherwise you’re gonna be left behind because that’s how fast the MSP word is. Uh, moving.

[00:18:42] Vince Menzione: Well, I’m gonna turn it over to you P but I just wanna, I want to kind of frame out a little bit like, ’cause we.

You know, we talk about like, you need to be able to speak Microsoft if you’re working with Microsoft, right? So

[00:18:52] Nabil Aitonumeziane: he said something earlier about Jack of all trade and master of none. This is how FSI, uh, about eight years ago decided to, uh, partner with one of the biggest partners in the world, Microsoft, for the reason we were tired of being Jack of Trade and master of none.

We wanted to be good at one thing and be very good at it. So we went and we chose Microsoft. I always liked working with them, so we went with Microsoft. But it’s not about just Microsoft as a partner, choose your partners. Be very wise about how you choose your partners. ’cause the culture is also important when you working with a partner.

Like I’ve worked with a point, which we have an amazing relationship. I work with Black Point, I work with Huntress, I work with Microsoft a lot. But the common things that we all have together, we are all Microsoft companies. Yeah. And the culture at FSI is Microsoft. So if I went to F Point, because F Point was also eating, breathing, sleeping.

Microsoft as well. Yes. ’cause they started their business in 2001. They were a SharePoint company. So they know, they understand how Microsoft functions, whatever. But my point to you guys here. Having the right partner will help you succeed and move forward. So an ISV that you’re buying, uh, uh, services from or software from.

Work with them, do marketing with them, do events with them. Uh, create things. I think this is something that we have lost. We don’t see that much anymore. We see a lot of ISVs in the conferences where they’re just over there. Selling? No. Do things together. Yes. To the community, to our customers. Yeah. For example, I’m working, I’m doing RO show with a point.

I do the same thing with Microsoft where we get all our customers and our customers have also access to our ISV directly. So they know when I’m telling them, Hey, you need to buy that product I’m bringing. My partner to the discussion, they can talk with them and you know, so partnership is very important.

[00:21:00] Vince Menzione: So you talked about a couple things. I’m gonna frame it and I want to turn it over to P ’cause he’s had some, he had raised his hand in a way. Uh, you talked about outcomes. So talk, start talking about the outcomes that you’re, we’re gonna help you achieve. And then you also, what I, what you implied is we bring value back to Microsoft.

So this is like, how do I get a seller’s attention? And you might be in the SMB market, but they have a sales organization called Small Medium Enterprise and Channel Ssec is the new term. Not my favorite term, but, but they have taken Nicole Deen’s organization who spoke at our last event where you all were there.

Um, and they’ve combined those organizations to help get the scale to the SMB market. But they have salespeople, they have sellers and specialists that support even these smaller customers. PI know you wanted to, to jump in with some thoughts on, on this, and how do you get yourself aligned better? With that Microsoft organization.

[00:21:55] Per Werngren: So don’t ask what Microsoft can do for you, ask what you can do for Microsoft.

Nice.

[00:21:59] Per Werngren: We heard that before. It is important to understand that the Microsoft people, they have lot of things on their plate and so many emails are flowing in and there are 500,000 great partner in the world.

Yes.

[00:22:12] Per Werngren: So you need to make sure that you make it easy for them to understand what you bring to the table.

And something that they love is when you communicate wins. Wins with clients. And the best, and you know, that you do it beautifully, is to take care of clients that are underserved. Clients that are kind of forgotten, do a great thing and communicate that with Microsoft. They love that.

[00:22:39] Nabil Aitonumeziane: So one of the thing that Per was talking about, it’s uh, the way I work with Microsoft as an MSP, uh, specializing, like mostly in Microsoft, it’s, I work with the sellers.

We have a plan together, so don’t go and knock at. A point, or Microsoft or whoever, uh, the, the partner is, and ask for handouts. You need to do some work. So what we do at FSI, we do, we run marketing campaigns for the sellers. Alright? We utilize our SDRs internally to make phone calls for debt accounts.

With that, uh, ISV that we’re working with. So

[00:23:14] Vince Menzione: you’re generating leads. So we

[00:23:16] Nabil Aitonumeziane: are doing the work, we are doing the dirty work as well. We are not, we just, we’re trying to like, what I call it the three Ws, win, win, win. Not only Microsoft wins. Microsoft wins. FSI wins the customers power

[00:23:28] Scott Sacket: of three. Power of three.

[00:23:30] Nabil Aitonumeziane: Here we go. So it’s, uh, that’s what we’re doing. Like, so my point, don’t go to, uh, a partner. And expect them to just because you are buying a software from them, that they’re gonna be giving you referrals, whatever, do things with them, build a relationship with them. Partnership, I think is one of the most important thing for success for any MSP out there.

You need to choose a partner wisely and work with them closely. So this is how it works. I mean, you have to build that. It’s, uh, you’re becoming one because, for example, I’m gonna go back to it again. F point, I’ll sell their stuff for the backup. It’s part of my onboarding. Every customer that we onboard, their backup is going straight to F point.

So what? What the whole meaning of this. When FSI wins, F point wins. The customer wins. Yeah. And Microsoft, you have created And Microsoft. Yeah. And the trust. Trust, yes. And the whole, by the way, talking about partnerships, if there is no trust, there’s no partners, there’s no partnership. It’s the same thing.

Like in a marriage. Yeah. No trust, no marriage. No trust, no partnership. It, I think it’s for me to succeed as an MSP today because of all the competition out there, you need to choose wisely your partner and partner with them and go all out. I mean, don’t go ask for handouts, do the dirty work, work with the partner.

Come up with ideas, you know, be, be the person out there who’s gonna give them ideas to run the marketing campaign for their own customer. ’cause they’re gonna benefit from it. Yep. It’s not only FSI or whoever the MSB is

[00:25:05] Per Werngren: and not the person that is being shown on a big screen on a cool, that’s right.

[00:25:09] Vince Menzione: So I, I gotta turn to that because that point is, is genuinely probably one of the best at brand and story and getting and, and doing things that are not traditional.

Like how do you kind of sit back and wait for things at Point has an incredible reputation for really making things happen. Like really like going out above and beyond. I want. I was hoping, Scott, you could talk a little bit about this as well.

[00:25:34] Scott Sacket: Yeah, and I’ll, I’ll, you know, frame it in the lens of the Microsoft story as well.

[00:25:38] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And partner of the year for like, seven, eight years, something like that. Maybe nine years running, something like that. Um,

[00:25:43] Scott Sacket: hopefully more. Yes, yes. You know, as we go. But, um, you know, similar, similar to, to, uh, everyone, we spend a lot of time understanding Microsoft School. Right, what outcomes they’re looking for.

Yeah. And, and we really do build our messaging, our, our stack, even our commercial bundles. Around those outcomes. Right? So, you know, our MSPs, our resellers, ultimately our partners, I mean, everybody, um, needs to understand sort of, you know, we’re revolving around the sun, right? Yes. Microsoft is sort of the center of that, that solar system.

And we want to make sure that Microsoft wins, we win, our partner wins, right? That power of three story is really, really critical. Super

[00:26:26] Vince Menzione: critical.

[00:26:26] Scott Sacket: Um, and when we do that, this, it’s very simple to partner. It’s very simple. Right, because we understand that Microsoft wants everyone to get into co-pilot.

Microsoft wants people leveraging AI workloads or, or, uh, Azure workloads and AI workloads. Certainly, yeah. Right. Um, this is what is very clearly written. I mean, we’re in, um, you know, in a new fiscal year, right. Microsoft new fiscal year. Yeah. We’re all kind of unpacking, uh, what the new program is. Right.

It’s, it’s not always easy to figure it out. That’s right. Right. But there’s some obvious themes, right. Ai, Azure, right. Building workloads and, and technology on there. I mean, agents are starting to become really prevalent, right? And we have a story around even agents and governance. So there, there’s a lot there that, um, you know, we, we think about it in the, in the Microsoft lens, right?

And how we deliver that ultimately to our partners, which empowers them to be successful. Which, ’cause that’s the key here. We can’t, you know, just sell, right? That’s right. We need to enable our partners with technology, with support co-marketing, as Nabil alluded to, right? Co-marketing is so important.

Co-sell. Unbelievably important, right? Really important. It’s, it’s really finally, finally, co-sell is so hard, right? We build our whole team around, co-sell with partners. So it, it’s a, it’s a huge opportunity, but you have to think about it in, in sort of the lens of what Microsoft is trying to accomplish.

[00:27:49] Vince Menzione: Let’s dive in a little bit on ai. We’ve kind of, we’ve skirted around it as a subject, but let, let’s talk about a couple things. First of all, Nvidia, $4 trillion market cap and growing, by the way, they just, they just got. Entry now into China in a big way. The Trump administration has approved them selling some of their better chips into China, so we’re gonna see this thing continuing to grow.

Data center movement is huge. Power companies, utility companies are becoming huge now, by the way, because they’re, they’re downstream of this. Somebody’s gotta drive the power consumption. And we’re seeing big deals right in, in, in the Middle East. We’re seeing big deals here worldwide. Tons and tons of these data centers, big chips.

Uh, Microsoft leaning in big with it, with chat, GPT and copilot, but you know, also more, more involvement here. And people are starting to see the benefit finally. Right? Because we talked about the early days, like people overestimated what you would see one year and they underestimate what they see in 10.

And that’s what we saw with AI the first year was like, eh, it was underwhelming. And then the first couple years of selling copilot, eh, I didn’t see the results right. Well, now we’re getting to this point where now AG agentic is starting to get layered in. We’re starting to see Microsoft, in fact, creating a separate group for, for startups where they’re gonna be laying in, Jason Grey’s gonna be running this new initiative to go and embed AI into all these organizations.

You’re starting to see more of that motion happening, and this means also, this is where the MSPs are gonna come in the, the layering in the, somebody’s gotta layer in all the agenda ai, all the AI across these platforms. And who is gonna do it? Let’s talk about ai. I know we, we all have points of view on it.

I think we all are very passionate about it. I believe personally, five years our world is gonna be radically different than it is today because it’s happening so fast. We’re starting to see this hockey stick. What would you have to say to that, Scott?

[00:29:40] Scott Sacket: Yeah. I mean, we think about AI in, in really multiple angles, right?

We of course think about AI in what we can build into our own technology. Right. We wanna make our technology smarter and leverage best of, you know, breed technology. We think about AI and how we can build a better company. Right. Of course. Right. We’re an organization. Yeah. That wants to be more productive.

That’s right. And we think about AI in how we can help our partners get their customers there. So we have like three different work streams when we think about ai and we’re leveraging all three, right? So we build technology that ultimately. Is smart and scales right, and is automated and, and comes up with, you know, suggestions and, and different ideas for the person using the technology ultimately to make the right decisions.

Um, we think about AI readiness and security, right? The number one reason why people don don’t. Deploy copilot today is data security risk. Yeah. Right? And, and it’s a really public cloud. I mean, right. It’s a really, really important problem today, surfacing that risk. You know, are you oversharing? Um, you know, do you have proper governance on a, on a team, right?

Yeah. All of those different complex issues. Um, and then once again, internally, we’re building agents, right? How do we get smarter? We have something called chat, A VPT, right? And we use that. I mean, I think Microsoft did a really nice, um, case study on us actually. Uh, about how we’re leveraging AI today internally.

So we, we, we think AI is once again disrupting everything. It’s changing the way we think about business. I am, you know, just astonished to see what will become right in the next few years, of course. Um, but it, it’s layered everywhere, right? Everything we do should be thinking about, you know, prompts. Yeah.

And, and, and, you know, that should be our first, you know, reflex, you know, reflexive ai, right? You know, first thing you think about is, well, how can I use AI to do. Task X, Y, Z. Yeah. Right. So it’s very interesting times.

[00:31:33] Per Werngren: So we use, um, ai of course. Um, internally, we want to be a good customer, zero. And, uh, we use it, uh, to, um, make ourselves more efficient, more intelligent.

We also use it, uh, when it comes to, uh, operating Azure, and we have our own service called AI Operations, which is about taking care of all these AI workloads and make sure that they run 24 7. That’s a beautiful service. So we live and brief. Ai, but looking outside, um, our company ID next, I think that MSPs in general need to think about how can they swing ai.

Um, the low hanging fruit is, of course, using it internally, but then making sure that they are exploring if they can set up services. Subscription services that are based on AI and that leverage this momentous that we got in AI right now. So perhaps we are used to, uh, renting a car at the airport, Hertz rent a car.

We, we might see Hertz rent an agent. So like, think about it because if you are not thinking about it, someone else will.

[00:32:49] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Yeah. Very good point. Good

[00:32:52] Nabil Aitonumeziane: point. Uh, per. But per just said it all, so, but uh, no, the way I look at it, uh, for us as an MSP, uh, when it comes to ai, first of all, we need to drink our own Kool-Aid.

Yes. Alright. I think the same thing went with a lot of companies. They were promoting a lot of AI and they were not using it internally. Didn’t even know what it meant. So I feel like for us, uh, at FSI, we already, uh, we are using AI copilot in our help desk. We even moved our, uh. ConnectWise moved it to Dynamics where in the CRM we run our, uh, ticketing system through Dynamics.

Uh, we run our sales through dynamics. We run our marketing through dynamics and all that. We have ai, uh, involved in it. I love it. And we are trying to change the culture internally with our people. It’s to push people to, uh, be using more AI because the reason why we are already helping customers. With ai, if we don’t know about ai, how are we gonna be helping someone else with ai?

That’s right.

[00:33:56] Nabil Aitonumeziane: So what per said, start thinking about it because ai, it’s exactly what happened when the internet came. What year did the internet, uh, uh, appeared?

[00:34:07] Vince Menzione: Oh, it was in the nineties. Yeah, in the

[00:34:09] Nabil Aitonumeziane: nineties. Yeah. It was the same thing. What’s happening right now. No one knew what was, what was going on, what’s happening, and so my only advice I will give to any MSP.

Get on AI because if you don’t, someone else is gonna come and take it from you. Well,

[00:34:25] Vince Menzione: you’re gonna

[00:34:25] Nabil Aitonumeziane: fall back. Somebody else is gonna support your customers. With ai,

[00:34:29] Vince Menzione: I feel like every day you wait, you’re falling a month or a year further behind. It’s happening. Absolutely. So rapidly now,

[00:34:36] Scott Sacket: it took chat GPT two months to get to 100 million users.

Yeah. That’s crazy, right? I mean, it took cloud Facebook years. To accomplish those things. Yeah. Imagine where we’ll be in a year. You cannot wait and the

[00:34:49] Vince Menzione: hallucinations are dropping dramatically. The power and the the quality of the output is so much better than it was even just a few months ago. Go ahead.

[00:34:58] Nabil Aitonumeziane: No, I was gonna say, uh, when it comes to ai, we have to learn it because we have to think about it ourselves as executives. It only be makes us better.

Absolutely. It’s

[00:35:10] Nabil Aitonumeziane: the same message we need to take to the leaders out there. Telling them ai, it’s only going to make you better. Make your business better, think faster.

That’s why I’m telling all to all the MSPs out there, learn it, do research, start working on it, because actually, ai, believe it or not, for an MSP, is gonna open up a lot of opportunities. For example, security. Data cleanup, so all that. So you need to be part of this, uh, era.

[00:35:39] Vince Menzione: I’m gonna put you on the spot a little bit, NABI.

Sure. Because we’ve had this conversation for a while. We’ve been doing Ultimate Partner for years. The podcast, about two plus years ago, we started doing events. We did our first live stream and then our first in person. And we’ve continued down that route. We, one of the things I get from MSPs quite often is, I don’t know where to start.

I don’t know what to do. Can you help me? What do you say to some of those MSPs to help them be more successful?

[00:36:09] Nabil Aitonumeziane: So one of the biggest advice I will give over here, join a group. Like for example, I joined Ultimate Partner. That’s how, believe it or not, that’s how I’ve met Docs, Scott Pair, and those are the people who became part of my life, my Microsoft life.

Yeah. Alright. But I had the exact same question few years back where to start because. For example, as uh, FSI, working with Microsoft, it’s not very easy to work with Microsoft. So I have to start somewhere, right? And my beginning, it all started, believe it or not, it was an ultimate partner in Dallas at Las Colinas.

Yeah, when we’ve met the original

[00:36:48] Vince Menzione: event, yeah. It was, I think one of the

[00:36:50] Nabil Aitonumeziane: best, uh, shows ever and it just opened up my eyes to the Microsoft world because. I was never able to be, uh, anywhere near president of Microsoft or a C-level executive who is in the same room as you. And then you can ask the question or other partners who are just like you, who either they have 20 years of experience and they’re doing $10 billion, or they are five years and doing 5 million.

But that’s what I met the people through Ultimate Partner. That’s what I started to meet the right people, the exact people that I needed to meet with Microsoft, for me to start working directly with Microsoft. So that’s what I was talking earlier. Partnership For me, uh, personally, as an MSP owner, it’s one of the most important thing.

[00:37:37] Vince Menzione: And you’re not gonna find that surfing the web or going on a LinkedIn profile, right? No. You will

[00:37:41] Nabil Aitonumeziane: not find this, these things you have, uh, to meet either the right group or the right people. Yeah, to put you in touch. And there is a lot of groups out there. Like I said, I was lucky enough, uh, to be in Dallas for the ultimate partner and I was, uh, privileged to meet with Kevin Piker at the time, which was a big deal.

Was a president of Microsoft. Uh, but yeah, for me, that’s, uh, how we work. I think partnerships are very important. Yeah. And

[00:38:08] Vince Menzione: then you met up with Ducks, Raymond Sa, who you knew from many years ago, but you hadn’t seen each other funny enough.

[00:38:13] Nabil Aitonumeziane: Uh, the story with Ducks, I think I, uh, keep repeating that story over and over, but it was here in Boca about a year ago.

Uh, went to breakfast with Ducks and Per was there, uh, docs opened up a laptop while we’re having breakfast. Like, oh, let me show you a product. We have no joke. Within five minutes I picked up the phone, called my office, I said. You need to see what this company has to offer. And believe it or not, it’s been a year, it’s been one of the best partnerships we’ve had because we also get a lot of support from our partner.

So by the way, partnerships is two ways. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That’s why I was talking earlier when I said about Microsoft. For any MSPs out there, don’t go ask for hands out. So, you know. Do something for them. So they do something for you. It has to go both ways.

[00:39:01] Vince Menzione: So I was at one of the, on one of the AF point calls just about a month or so ago, and they were talking, they were glowingly talking about your company and how much business you’ve generated for them.

[00:39:11] Nabil Aitonumeziane: We actually have generated a lot of business things to, uh, our, uh, partner a point. Uh, and again, a point has been a big help for us when it comes to the whole AI era as well, because. It started all with copilot readiness, which was ai. And through that we got so much going on with helping our customer clean up the data, you know, uh, secure their data.

Like all that is created projects for us. And it’s funny because AF Point kind of introduced us to AI and directly ’cause we were doing the copilot readiness. I love it. That’s how it all started. So

[00:39:49] Scott Sacket: you’re gonna make me blush. Yeah, please don’t. I love that. I love to see that

[00:39:53] Per Werngren: there. You’ve been talking about this.

Yeah. A small thing that you said that I want to emphasize a little bit. You made a technical decision, which vendor should we go with? Which vendor’s? Technology. Yep. You made it as a business person, and that is often more successful than technical people making decisions that

[00:40:13] Nabil Aitonumeziane: absolutely. Absolutely. I think decisions have to be made in as a business, not as technical.

[00:40:19] Scott Sacket: Yes, but, but also, right. The product solves a really hard problem. Of course. That’s right. But what has taken the partnership to another level? Co-sell, co-marketing, personal relationships, advocacy. Yes. Right. That is sort of the difference between when you think about, do I take on a vendor, do I onboard a vendor, or you know, nah, not for me.

Right. That’s the piece that separates, you know, many MSPs from Good to Great.

[00:40:44] Nabil Aitonumeziane: And they feel like when it comes to vendor, you have to work with the vendor that you love. Yes. It’s like really, it’s like a marriage. ’cause don’t forget that you’re selling this product to your customer. That means you gotta be selling them something that you believe in.

And that’s why when you said it’s the trust and that personal relationship with the vendor, because you know why, when you have a personal relationship. You can run ideas with them and they can run ideas with you as well because you are in it together. When you grow, they grow. Your customer grows. It’s everybody wins in here.

So,

[00:41:16] Vince Menzione: you know, we talk about the principles of success, but it starts at the to top with the growth mindset and the executive commitment, and you see the difference in organizations like a point that maybe some other organizations out there that maybe are not as. Little bit more reticent on the partnering side.

Maybe not as, not as the trust is. What

[00:41:33] Nabil Aitonumeziane: a good point, Vince. Honestly, it makes all the difference in the world that personal relationships and when you have C-level, uh, executives who are open to talk to any of their customers, whoever, like, that’s what I had my relationship with that point today, uh, I feel very comfortable.

If there’s an issue, I’ll call because I have, I feel comfortable to say good or bad. ’cause we’re in it together.

[00:41:56] Vince Menzione: Agree. I wanna stay on this topic of communities and a little bit of a call out to p who’s been around for me for several years. We, we started having conversations five during COVID about the fact that we really needed to do something here to bring, ’cause we had the people, we just needed to get them all in the same room back in those days.

P So

[00:42:15] Per Werngren: what happens when you bring people together is that you build trust. And when you have built trust, you start helping each other and that builds even more trust. And even if you’re not doing business together, you will influence each other’s business. You will help each other, and that’s good for the group.

As a whole, and it’s also good for all individual members, but you need to have a mentality where you’re willing to share, where you’re willing to expose yourself and talk about what is not working well and get help from others. And that is the essence of a great community and ultimate partner has really become a wonderful community.

Where the trust level is super high

[00:42:59] Vince Menzione: because of people like each of you. And AV Point has come on as a big sponsor, a big supporter of our, of our events. I wanted to talk about this for a minute ’cause we are gonna only have a few minutes left. So unselfish, plug here a little bit. Right? So these gentlemen were just at our event in Redmond just a couple of months ago, right?

May 1st and second. It seems like it was yesterday. In some regards. And, uh, you’ll be back again. October. We’re gonna be in Reston, Virginia, Washington DC area. Really the tech hub of the Washington DC Metro area, but also

[00:43:28] Nabil Aitonumeziane: must attend.

[00:43:29] Vince Menzione: Yeah, must attend. And that’ll be on the, we’ll start on the 27th of October with a beautiful reception.

And then we have two full days of content at Csof, which at point is responsible for us hosting that event and co-sponsoring the event with us. And then we’re hoping to do something also around the Ignite Conference as well. So we’ve got a, we’ve got a rich fall coming up, and then we’ll be back in the studio in the winter.

We’ve, we’ve all agreed that this is our favorite place to come in, like January and February. So we’re probably gonna do a couple of our, our live. And it’s, and

[00:43:59] Nabil Aitonumeziane: it’s also, people need to know, I mean, for the MSP uh, community out there, it’s the place where you’re gonna come and learn everything. How to do business with Microsoft, by the way, at those events, this is what I’ve learned.

Uh, how to work with Microsoft. It’s through building relationship with people who are coming to the Ultimate partner, uh, event. And this is the place to be. You have to come, there will be Microsoft people, there will be other ISVs who are gonna, uh, share stories with you, other sis who are like, just like you, who can tell you what works, what doesn’t work, you, you know, it’s kind of basically it’s a peer group.

That’s why I love it. It’s, uh, I built new friends.

[00:44:36] Vince Menzione: And we’ve had some mentors and we’ve had some of the other vendors come in like PAX eight and Ingram in the last event. So we’re starting to see, again, this ties into what App Point’s been doing already in getting, I, I call it the long tail, but it’s the, it takes you all through the mid-market, all the way down to the smallest customers.

You need a mechanism to get there, and this is what we’re talking about now. And then even the large organizations need to become more like MSPs. So we’re hoping to get some of the resellers in the room because they, the ones that are successful, the ones that are building their own ms. MSP or they’re a requiring MSPs.

We could talk about some of that as well if we had another hour today. But,

[00:45:12] Per Werngren: and that blend is beautiful, that you have members that are coming from different corners of the industry and that makes, uh, good network o opportunities. Yeah.

[00:45:22] Scott Sacket: Yeah. The, the partner ecosystem is changing rapidly. Um, everyone has to learn quickly how to do service delivery.

Um, you know, you, you feel it when you understand, you know, licensing and margins and kind of where the world is going in AI as well. Um, and this is a really, a great community right, to start investing in, frankly, because it, it’s gonna help you on that journey. And I, I love to see, um, distributors and LSPs and all different sorts of partners that we know are doing great service delivery, right?

They need to do it at scale, they need to be automated, right? And they need to do it profitably. Um, and this is really a great combination of vendors and other partners to, to kind of have that peer group and no group is greater from a peer to peer perspective than the MSP community. Yeah. I am always blown away with how well everyone works together.

Yeah. Well,

[00:46:12] Vince Menzione: thank you Scott for that. And I wanna just call out these gentlemen all flew in today just to be here in the studio. I’m just, I feel so privileged to have you as friends and supporters. You came in from New New York area, Stockholm, Sweden. Right. And the DC area as well. And all flew in today just to be here to help you, and I want to thank everyone.

I know we’re basically at time right now. I want to thank all of our supporters, what an incredible community we’re building with, with you. Uh, I have a personal mission to help each of you achieve your greatest results. I’m very fortunate to be here and I, I, I don’t discount that in any way. So, uh, come to ultimate.

The, the ultimate partner.com or ultimate Guide to Partnering, you’ll find us at the same, I’ll take you to the same website. Um, the event in rest, and the registration is opening either today or tomorrow. So you’ll be able to register. We’re gonna have, these gentlemen will be in the room again. Uh, we’ll have a deep conversation.

We’re gonna have an MSP track. We’re gonna be growing that. We’ll have some of the other top ISVs in the room, some of the Microsoft leaders, some of the other leaders in the hyperscaler market will be in the room with us at this event. Helping, nurturing your growth. This is what it’s all about. We also bring the top partner tech companies in the room that support us.

Companies like Sugar and Tackle and Work Span all come in and support our events. And then some of the top consulting companies are also in the room, the Carve partners, the the Bridge partners, uh, all of those organizations to help nurture your growth. And so one ticket, a couple of days of time, you’re gonna learn more in that period of time.

You heard p talk about that. So come to the ultimate partner.com and then you can also watch us. You’ll wa you can watch this recording. Um, the edited version of this will be on our YouTube channel, ultimate partner.com or ultimate partner YouTube channel. You’ll find us there. And then if you wa would like to listen in your car or while you’re taking the kids to soccer or riding your bike or doing whatever exercise you’re doing, just you can watch this on Ulti, whatever.

Wherever you listen to the Ultimate partner or the ultimate guide to partnering, you’ll find us. So I want to thank each of you. For your support, for being so supportive of this. Great, these great gentlemen, this part of this great community that we are building together, and, uh, we’ll hope to see you all in Reston, Virginia in just a few months.

And thank you for joining us today. Thank you.

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Is your business ready for 2026?

Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Podcast.

Nina Harding, Microsoft’s partner leader for the Americas, joins host Vince Menzione to discuss the seismic shifts happening at the start of Microsoft’s fiscal year 2026. This isn’t just another discussion; it’s a deep dive into Microsoft’s renewed partner-centric strategy, the transformative power of AI, and the tactical steps partners need to take now to thrive. Nina reveals how partners are now “front and center” in Microsoft’s priorities, how a new industry-based structure is changing everything, and the crucial role of AI in boosting sales and innovation. She shares actionable insights on co-selling, the new “Frontier” mindset, and why being a “customer zero” for AI is no longer optional. This conversation provides a strategic roadmap for every partner looking to align with Microsoft’s vision for the future.

Key Takeaways

If you’re ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community. At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins.

Microsoft, Nina Harding, Vince Menzi, Ultimate Partner, partner strategy, fiscal year 26, FY26, AI, artificial intelligence, Copilot, Microsoft partners, co-sell motion, customer engagement methodology, CEM, industry-based, operating units, OUs, Total Addressable Markets, TAM, small medium enterprise, SMC, software development companies, SDCs, ISV, channel partners, account executive, AE, solution areas, Biz Apps, security, Azure, Microsoft field, America’s Partner Brief, APB, agentic AI, marketplace, digital transformation, Frontier, enablement, technical roles.

[00:00:00] Nina Harding: We’re finding such intense productivity. Um, for example, with our sales reps, the ones that are using AI consistently, we’re seeing, um, about a 10% increase in their pipeline. We’re seeing a 23% higher close rate and 9%, uh, larger book of business in actual revenues.

[00:00:25] Vince Menzione: Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering. I’m Vince Menzi, the CEO of Ultimate partner and your host, and I am thrilled today to welcome Nina Harding, Microsoft’s partner leader for the America’s business. Nina, welcome to the studio here.

[00:00:41] Nina Harding: Oh, thanks so much for having me.

[00:00:42] Vince Menzione: So excited to have you. Was great.

Many of you don’t know this, but Nina actually lives here in Florida. Yeah. We both live in Florida only. Yeah. We live

[00:00:50] Nina Harding: pretty close to each other everywhere. Pretty close together. Yeah. What, three and a half miles, maybe?

[00:00:54] Vince Menzione: Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. It’s crazy. Yeah. And this is our Boca studio. For those of you who haven’t been here yet, Nina’s gonna be here this, this winter.

We’ll have you, we’ll have you on stage.

[00:01:03] Nina Harding: Great.

[00:01:03] Vince Menzione: In front of our partners, all of our partners that watch and listen to the ultimate guide to partnering, but so, so thrilled to have you join us today. We have such an amazing conversation to have today because. This is an important inflection point in Microsoft’s year, right?

The beginning of fiscal year 2026. Yeah. For those of you looking at your calendars and watches. Uh, it’s 2025, but for Microsoft we’ve started fiscal year 26 and so, so many changes that are happening. So much excitement and enthusiasm around the new year.

[00:01:33] Nina Harding: Absolutely. We have a lot

[00:01:34] Vince Menzione: to cover today.

[00:01:35] Nina Harding: Yeah, we do.

Yeah,

[00:01:35] Vince Menzione: we do. So I thought maybe we’d spend a minute on that, if you don’t mind. Sure. Maybe we’ll start there because there were a lot of announcements made. Sure. And, uh, Judson and Nicole and some others were on the on stage just about a week and a half ago talking him through the changes. Yeah. I thought maybe you could help lead us through some of the conversation Yeah.

On what’s changed and what’s stayed the same.

[00:01:56] Nina Harding: Right. Um, well, I think the. Biggest change I’ve seen is partner is front and center as one of the top three priorities at the company.

[00:02:06] Vince Menzione: I’m so happy to see that. So

[00:02:07] Nina Harding: that is really exciting. Yeah. So, uh, we had to start, as you mentioned, a couple weeks ago, and every single.

Presentation every, some single executive was talking about our partners. Uh, when Judson normally has like a panel of customers up there. This time he had two partners in one customer. So I love that the tone is really, uh, forward on partners. The major changes that you’re seeing, uh, first is that we’re trying to bring the partners more into the core business.

Uh, align them with the sales teams. So what that means is our channel partners are now sitting toe to toe, shoulder to shoulder with the um, sm. C and e folks, right? Yeah. Yep. So, um, what we hope with that is there’s even tighter integration. We get rid of some of that friction that might have been there, and we operate as one.

I love that our partners really become that extension of our Salesforce, um, out, out there on the front lines, um, on the, on the other side. We have an opportunity in the enterprise to go even tighter and deeper with our services and what we’re now referring to as our SDC software development. SII

[00:03:24] Vince Menzione: know, it’s I know, I know, I know.

Good

[00:03:26] Nina Harding: old, good old Sandy

[00:03:27] Vince Menzione: Gupta and I had a conversation about this at our last event and, uh, it’s so hard it doesn’t roll off the tongue very easily.

[00:03:33] Nina Harding: No, it doesn’t, but it’s actually much more inclusive. Yes. So, um, it’s funny, I had a conversation with an Nvidia and. They were the ones that kind of prompted even that opening with me of saying, Hey, we don’t see ourselves as an ISV.

And they’re not, they’re not, right? They’re, and so SDC is much more comprehensive, but kind of going back to some of those changes, that’s, uh, that’s where we’re seeing even tighter integration and how that shows up. That shows up in the way. Um, we look at pipeline, how we do reporting, um, in each of the ou, um.

Do you want me to talk about the OU as well? I do. Let’s

[00:04:11] Vince Menzione: talk about, so just for people that don’t under, don’t understand our acronyms. Yeah. But, uh, so Small Medium Enterprise and corporate is Ssec.

[00:04:18] Nina Harding: Yes. Is smec and

[00:04:19] Vince Menzione: a lot of partners we’re gonna, we’re gonna talk about where, what partners sit where. Sure.

And then the OU are the operating units. Correct. Uh, they are. And what people don’t always realize about the way how Microsoft is structured, because you sit on a leadership team and you’ve got representatives that are very industry focused, right? Correct. Across various aspects of the business. They have their own vp, they have their own marketing organization, they have their own selling organization, and so on and so on.

[00:04:43] Nina Harding: Yeah.

[00:04:44] Vince Menzione: So talk to us about that. That’s the operating units,

[00:04:46] Nina Harding: right? So, um, we affectionately call them operating units, but they’re really, as Judson affectionately calls them tam capture units. Right. So, um, a country, uh, you could have a country, yep. Or, um, an aggregate of countries or you could have division of countries.

They’re really based on the TAM capture opportunity. So in the United States and TAM being total

[00:05:12] Vince Menzione: addressable market, correct? Most correct. Sorry. No, that’s right. Yes.

[00:05:14] Nina Harding: Um, but for example, in the US. We have gone 100% industry based this year. I love it. It’s really, really exciting. Yeah. So we no longer have territories anywhere, and we’ve actually been able to introduce some new industries like oil and gas, right?

So I’ve

[00:05:31] Vince Menzione: seen that

[00:05:31] Nina Harding: gaming, those are real industries that make a difference, uh, to everyone. And so what’s exciting about that? As the conversation is changing, we’re going further and further away around how do we position product to how are we really solving customer problems? And the conversation is all at that industry level, in that language with the experts from the industry helping to solve problems with the customer.

And that’s where our partners come in too.

[00:06:01] Vince Menzione: It makes such a big difference. And then the partners that are surrounding that, or that sales organization are ones that are laser focused on that specific industry, right?

[00:06:09] Nina Harding: Absolutely. And that’s so critical. Um, I think today where our partners and even Microsoft sellers, we.

Perhaps we’re comfortable positioning product or doing implementations,

[00:06:22] Vince Menzione: selling that ea.

[00:06:24] Nina Harding: Right, right. Um, now we’re moving into this kind of imagineering stage. Yes. Where we’re really, where we’ve talked about being the strategic advisor to, uh, a customer. Well, now it’s really here. Yeah. You have to speak their language, you have to understand their business problems, and then you have to help them also reimagine what the future looks like.

[00:06:45] Vince Menzione: It’s so critical. Uh, we were the first industry in public sector when I was there, and we were the only ones who spoke a different language. And then the rest of the field organization was territories. And it was, you know, accounts were just split up. They had different sales reps. There was really no knowledge of what that customer did.

And like you, like you’re saying here, I mean, it’s so, it’s so critical and important.

[00:07:04] Nina Harding: Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:07:05] Vince Menzione: So I wanna dive in a little bit on Ssec and the channel and how that integrates. So the OU relies on partners and co-selling is an incredible piece of what they do as well, right?

[00:07:16] Nina Harding: Absolutely, absolutely.

So, and

[00:07:18] Vince Menzione: I know that you, you said that they’re paid a little bit differently. Before we started you were, you were talking about compensation packages.

[00:07:23] Nina Harding: Yeah. So we’ve, we’ve really, uh, made an effort this year to make sure that for our enterprise partners, so in particular the services and the. SDCs, right?

The ISVs, yeah. Um, that we have a really strong co-sell motion, right? So we’re focused on making sure that we’re understanding all the opportunities together. Uh, we’re looking at propensity maps and that we’re making those introductions at a deeper level from a compensation perspective, um, and even a review.

The methodology and making it, um, part of the day-to-day rhythm of the business. As we refer to it as, yes, uh, Microsoft, um, means it even is in the way we do monthly business reviews, how we’re showing up, evaluating the business. What is the partner attach rate? Are we seeing a difference when a partner is attached at stage one versus stage two versus after the deal closes?

Yeah. Um, are certain partners performing better? Is the size of a deal getting bigger because the partner is in there? Um, those are the things that we’re able to do now that we have much tighter integration with Microsoft’s SEM model. Yeah,

[00:08:36] Vince Menzione: and that’s why I was, I, I knew you were alluding to the sem. Yeah.

So a lot of people that have been to our events before. We’ve had, SEM has been repeatedly covered or talked about.

[00:08:47] Nina Harding: Yeah,

[00:08:47] Vince Menzione: so that’s Microsoft’s customer engagement methodology.

[00:08:51] Nina Harding: Very good.

[00:08:52] Vince Menzione: And, uh, and it, and what’s really, really terrific about this, this wasn’t there when I was at Microsoft, is really this.

Structuring of this is, this is the steps you take in the sales process. These are the things you do. This is when partners get engaged in the process with you. Right, right. It helps the sellers better understand what the expectations and accountabilities look like.

[00:09:13] Nina Harding: Yeah. Especially the accountabilities around the different roles.

And that’s what I like, is that we’ve actually gone down to the role level and not only what their role is with the customer, but what is their role with the partner. Yeah. And then what role does the partner play at different stages? So the maturation of the model has really opened the aperture, I think, for the opportunity for partners to come in and make a material difference and be part.

Of the engagement process. Yeah,

[00:09:41] Vince Menzione: that’s so, so critical. And one of the things we do at our events and some of, in fact we’ll cover, we’ll have a co-selling workshop conversation here later this month. We’ll have a couple of experts come in, um, including Jen Weis, who’s one of the partner development managers, uh, well known.

And then we have a lot of leaders that come in here to talk about this because partners don’t always, aren’t always aware. Of what their role is, right? Mm-hmm. And May and maybe the partner alliance manager, the leadership does, but within their own organizations, there’s some coaching that they need to do with their As as you’ve had to do with your organization.

Yeah. They have to do with their organization as well to make sure that they’re showing up right when they have those conversations and meetings

[00:10:21] Nina Harding: and actually in showing up. Right. One of the conversations I’m finding I’m having with a lot of partners, more than I’ve ever had is going back to some of the basics.

Like, when was the last time as a partner that you looked at what your internal profile looks like? How are you showing up in our systems? Um, what are the areas of expertise that you have? What are the customer success stories that are associated with you? And I know that that all sounds very simplistic, but we’re also in the world of ai.

Yes. And if we’re starting to put agents in front of all this information to help make recommendations to the field. And so I encourage our partners to go back and look at some of the plumbing, look at the basics. We’re going as far as in the Americas we’re introducing something called the A PB, the Americas Partner Brief.

And I know it sounds crazy, A PB,

[00:11:12] Vince Menzione: this is a new one for, for me. I know, I

[00:11:13] Nina Harding: know. Um, it’s just, and what is it exactly? It’s just getting introduced. Um, it is a detailed, much longer profile on a partner, that act that can be built with. The partner, uh, that goes into their industry expertise more around, uh, their customer penetration and what they’ve done, uh, helping to understand the workloads that they really can make a material difference on.

It’s not just about migration, but. What release of Oracle can you migrate to Azure? Yeah. That’s the level of detail that our field needs. And as a partner, you wanna differentiate yourself by these types of things. Yes. So these APBs allow us to have that much more detailed conversation about the value proposition and what differentiates each partner.

And then in front of that. We have an agent, and so as a sales rep is out there, and maybe they’re in healthcare life sciences, maybe they’ve got an epic implementation, but now they can say, Hey. I, it’s an epic, uh, implementation on Azure and I need to understand which partners can do that migration. Nice.

Um, which partners have built, agents have worked with, you know, any plethora of, um, solutions and ideally that’s what comes to bear.

[00:12:28] Vince Menzione: So this is happening in partner center, I’m assuming, or is happening outside of partner.

[00:12:32] Nina Harding: It is happening internally right now. Okay. Um, as a tool internally. So, so it’s

[00:12:37] Vince Menzione: an AI tool.

Yeah. We’re gonna talk a little bit more about the opportunity you’re around.

[00:12:41] Nina Harding: No, we have not exposed it through partner center yet. This is

[00:12:43] Vince Menzione: eating your, your own lunch here basically. Absolutely.

[00:12:47] Nina Harding: Yeah. We, we need to be AI first and everything that we do. Um, and I, I have a. Ton of examples of around, around how it’s transformed the way I do business, how I even work with partners, how I prepare to work with partners, how I go to market, or how I even do performance reviews.

Yeah, I mean, it’s really fun. That is amazing. Um, what it’s doing to.

[00:13:10] Vince Menzione: And then what you’re saying is too, these partners need to show up in a certain way so that they can be identified. Right? You, you need to have the right articulation of what your value proposition looks like.

[00:13:20] Nina Harding: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:20] Vince Menzione: So that Microsoft can find you.

This is, this is almost like SEO years ago with finding a search engines and things.

[00:13:27] Nina Harding: Well, it also will highlight their designations and their special specializations, but those are used to really unlock. Access, right? Yes. Um, unlock access to different, uh, incentives or access to EI, right. Or access to the field.

But it’s that next click down where the magic happens. And as we all know, there are quite a few people that can get to the designations, but they don’t necessarily have the magic sauce that your. Firm has. Yeah. Right. And that’s what we’re trying to do is make sure that we can help you illuminate that differentiation.

[00:14:01] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And, and, and your sales teams are perfectly aligned with the customer and know exactly what the customer is asking for at different levels. Right? Absolutely. And I think a lot of people miss this too, of, I do want to jump in on, on some of this tectonic shift conversation mm-hmm. Because AI and some of the other areas, but I do think that people misunderstand, like, what does an account executive do?

What does the sales team look like? Maybe you can just help us double click a little bit on that. I look at the account executive as almost like the quarterback.

[00:14:30] Nina Harding: Mm-hmm.

[00:14:31] Vince Menzione: And then they have solutions people that support them, right? Yeah. They, whether it’s ai, whether it’s cloud, whether it’s, uh, you know, office and, and other applications.

How do you, how do, how should a partner think about engaging with that, that team?

[00:14:47] Nina Harding: Well, there are a number, number of, uh, caveats to that. I’m just saying directly engage with that team, right? Yeah. Yes, exactly. The first. The first is, uh, I do recommend that partners, if you have a partner development manager, that you’re working with them on understanding and fine tuning.

Your value proposition with regards to a particular opportunity. Um, when we introduce you into the account, it is very effective. And then we’re actually tracking it. And going back to that reporting I was telling you, it’s on the leaderboard, right? And so even leadership is paying attention to all of that.

But as you’re looking at the account team, you’re absolutely right. We do have the ae, which is like the quarterback, right? Yeah. They’re responsible for the overall. Relationship. Um, but we now have, this year we’ve moved to just three solution areas. So yeah. Ah, is that ah, is that wonderful? Yes.

[00:15:41] Vince Menzione: I’m relieved.

[00:15:42] Nina Harding: I know. Well, I think everyone is. Yeah, right. Yeah. Um, so what

[00:15:45] Vince Menzione: are they?

[00:15:45] Nina Harding: Right? So, so we have, uh, Azure in ai, right? We have our biz apps. And then security. I love it. Pretty straightforward. Very straightforward, right? And then you, you put it all together there. Um, but what’s nice is that then you’ll have the, the specialist by those three different areas.

And as a partner, you wanna understand where you fit across all of them, or one or two. Right. Um, and then we also have, um, our customer engagement, right? So they’re looking at the success of the customer and the implementation. Those are actually a really key person for a lot of our partners, in particular, our services partners.

’cause they often are right in their, um, uh, making the recommendations Yeah. On which partners to bring in to help make what we’re positioning real.

[00:16:33] Vince Menzione: Yeah. So Azure and ai

[00:16:36] Nina Harding: mm-hmm.

[00:16:37] Vince Menzione: Which pretty self-evident business applications. Mm-hmm. We double click on that with me. ’cause we always thought talked about dynamics as kind of being its own separate thing, but this is also tying in the, the whole office suite and everything else into it as well.

Right?

[00:16:50] Nina Harding: Yeah.

[00:16:50] Vince Menzione: So there’s everything that’s customer facing. Yeah. Per,

[00:16:53] Nina Harding: you know, your stuff. That’s good. Um, yes. We’re in this, uh, this world where you’re seeing the commingling and blurring of the lines Yes. Between productivity tools and actually your Yes. Traditional ERPs, CRMs, right? Um, and that is where we’re unlocking a lot of the magic.

There’s a lot of momentum for us, um, right now, um, for our partners as well as, as a lot of the customers are saying, Hey, I want that blending. I want my, uh, end workers to be able to fluidly go between their experience in Outlook. And being in the ERP system. Yeah. Right. Um, I wanna be able to use co-pilots that go across, both generate the emails, uh, you’re, you’re a sales rep.

I wanted to automatically send some of these emails or write the emails that then I can add to, uh, before I send it to my customer. We’re finding such intense productivity. Um, for example, with our sales reps, the ones that are using AI consistently. Consistently. So that top quar quarter, shall we say, like in everything that they do, we’re seeing, um, about a 10% increase in their pipeline.

[00:18:09] Vince Menzione: Interesting.

[00:18:10] Nina Harding: Yep. We’re seeing a 23% higher close rate. That’s interesting. That’s really, and 9%, uh, larger book of business in actual revenues. That’s pretty cool.

[00:18:23] Vince Menzione: It’s very, well, it says as a seller it says, I need to get on board.

[00:18:27] Nina Harding: You do.

[00:18:27] Vince Menzione: Yeah.

[00:18:28] Nina Harding: We all do. Yeah. Right.

[00:18:29] Vince Menzione: So, well, let’s, let’s talk about that a little bit too.

Yeah. Like ai, we can’t, you know, I’ve talked about the tectonic shifts, right? So we talk about how rapid change transformation has been going on for quite some time. We used to talk about the fact that COVID. Was it an accelerant four, five years ago? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But then this thing called chat, GBT happened.

Then copilot happened like three years ago. Let’s call it three years now. And Oh, you’re

[00:18:50] Nina Harding: being generous. It’s not that long get that. It’s,

[00:18:52] Vince Menzione: it’s, no, it was November of 22. That’s of two. Yeah.

[00:18:55] Nina Harding: When

[00:18:55] Vince Menzione: chat GBT hit hit the market.

[00:18:57] Nina Harding: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:18:57] Vince Menzione: And then copilot. The spring afterwards.

[00:19:00] Nina Harding: Right.

[00:19:00] Vince Menzione: But this accelerant is happening so fast.

In the beginning, we overestimated what we expected. The bill Gates comment like, we overestimate what’s gonna happen in the year. We underestimate what’s gonna happen in 10 years. We’re starting to see this hockey stick now. What would you say?

[00:19:14] Nina Harding: Yeah, it’s incredible. Um, where we saw customers may be dipping their toe into things like copilot, right?

Yeah. Um, now we’re seeing them double down and. Make it pervasive and available to everyone at the company. You’re starting to see it transform the way, uh, we’re setting up, uh, call centers. Yeah. The way HR is engaging, um, the way that we’re putting together sales proposals, it’s in every piece of the business.

Now, finance, help me understand what, what are you seeing from my numbers? Gimme some intelligence so I look a little bit smarter. Right. Um, and you’ve

[00:19:48] Vince Menzione: been talking about verticals. I think about financial services. I

[00:19:52] Nina Harding: think about

[00:19:52] Vince Menzione: healthcare.

[00:19:53] Nina Harding: Oh, healthcare. Yeah. I mean, the

[00:19:54] Vince Menzione: impact in healthcare is astounding.

[00:19:56] Nina Harding: Oh, absolutely. Like the going to your doctor now you actually get to have a conversation with your doctor. Yeah. They have Dragon there, right? That’s right. That’s recording the conversation, putting it, putting it into, uh, the system. And I know with my, my doctor, I feel complete transformative relationship.

It’s almost like we went back 25 years, but not. With today’s technology in healthcare

[00:20:20] Vince Menzione: because now they have Epic or, or Cerner, whatever, whatever the application. But Epic is 90 per 80% of the market right now. Right?

[00:20:27] Nina Harding: Yeah. You have

[00:20:27] Vince Menzione: a great relationship with Epic as well.

[00:20:29] Nina Harding: Absolutely. But what I love is, to your point about healthcare, um, we’re back to like actually caring for the patient.

Not having to do all the data entry.

[00:20:39] Vince Menzione: Oh, I used to hate it. The doctors just sitting there tapping away. It still happens. By the way, they’re not all using Dragon yet. Oh, that’s blue. They’ll, they’ll get there. We’ll, got some work to do. Partners.

[00:20:47] Nina Harding: Let’s get ’em.

[00:20:48] Vince Menzione: I’ll give you a list of some of my, my doctors.

[00:20:51] Nina Harding: Yeah.

[00:20:51] Vince Menzione: But no, it’s fascinating. Um. Agentic ai. Yes. Right. So we layer, we talked mostly about the, the current use and copilot and other, and other uses. But this agentic AI really starts to change the game.

[00:21:03] Nina Harding: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:04] Vince Menzione: Because now applications start talking to one another, talks about this business applications that all spark start speaking to one another.

Yeah. You work with organizations like ServiceNow, as an example, that have been really leaning in on agentic ai. Yeah. Hopefully they’ll be coming. Michael Park will be coming to the podcast here soon.

[00:21:20] Nina Harding: Good.

[00:21:20] Vince Menzione: He’s also a former microsofty, but um, just this whole agentic piece is really, what are you starting to see there?

[00:21:27] Nina Harding: Oh, it’s exciting. Yeah. Um, it’s transformative. So let’s, let’s give a practical, everyday example, right? We’re all partners here, understanding in the partner world, I had someone on my team. In a matter of maybe two hours, build an agent that digested all the information around all our incentives worldwide.

Oh

[00:21:47] Vince Menzione: my gosh.

[00:21:49] Nina Harding: And now you can just ask the agent a question on incentives. Can you believe that? I mean, that’s just a little basic, practical two hour project. What we’re seeing is agents are showing up to help our, our, you know, practical reasons around partners, help our our field find the right partner.

Ask really interested, interesting, like kind of nuanced questions and be able to address that. Um, but it is allowing us to have autonomous and semi-autonomous. Workflows, right? Yeah. It’s, it’s really, uh, in incredible what we’re, uh, doing. I’m looking at every part of my business on where can I supplement to create a better experience for our partners or for my team.

Using an agent. Yeah. So that they can focus on the value added work. Just like we were talking about healthcare. I want my doctor to talk to me. Yeah. I want him to have a conversation with me. Absolutely. I want my team to have conversations with the partners and explore what’s possible. Not trying to kind of look through the, the minutia detail.

[00:22:55] Vince Menzione: Well sit there in partner center and trying to figure out how much business you’ve tracked this year. Oh yeah. They don’t have to do that any longer.

[00:23:01] Nina Harding: No, we now have agents that can actually put all of the information together and distill it in one place. I so love it. And then even go out, you can ask it to go out and get market information.

Yeah. Or think of new ideas and concepts. What haven’t I considered on doing with X, Y, Z partner? Yeah.

[00:23:18] Vince Menzione: Let’s talk about the organization a little bit more. Mm-hmm. I wanna double click on the fact that now you have this separate organization that’s very channel focused and your organization is enterprise partner focused.

[00:23:28] Nina Harding: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:28] Vince Menzione: Because the two do come together at certain points. Absolutely. Right. The, those channel partners. Selling first party, Microsoft’s first party products into those, uh, into those accounts, as well as selling those partners that you’re working with. So there’s this combination. I see a lot of it happening in the marketplace, right?

I see this collaboration happening. What’s your point of view on marketplace and the collaboration with the partners that you work with?

[00:23:52] Nina Harding: Yeah. I think, uh, marketplace is a very, very powerful co-sell, um, tool, right? Yeah. It, it, it allows, uh, in particular our software development companies and even services companies and then software development companies can bring in channels, channel partners as well.

Yeah. But it allows you to reach out to our entire customer base, um, and have the ability to accelerate the sales. Yeah. And also help highlight what your offerings are. And tailor them. Uh, I think that’s, uh, really important. But getting back to kind of the concept of, of the small SME. And c and, uh, we don’t want to say

[00:24:33] Vince Menzione: smec do, right?

EPS well, I, it rolls off the tongue sometimes, but say, but those

[00:24:38] Nina Harding: are internal organizations, right? And so we really don’t externalize it too much, right? For example, uh, when I do addresses to the America’s partners, it’s across all of, all of the different Absolutely. Areas. And our partners take an ISV, very few ISVs.

Only sell into enterprise. Yeah. They’re really across all segments. So we work together and, uh, my tagline internally is that if partner people don’t know how to partner and do business across all sorts of areas that we’re in the wrong business. Exactly. So, um, I’m not, I’m not, so I’m excited about how it’s energizing and connecting with the sales organizations where it’s also.

Uh, positioning our products to make sure that they’re segment specific and they’re addressing the needs of the customers in the segments. Uh, as well as that we have incentives that are really geared around the different behaviors that the partners are driving and the benefits that they’re driving for our customers, um, across multiple segments.

So it allows us the fidelity to meet. Our customers and our partners where the value proposition is even more

[00:25:46] Vince Menzione: effectively. And it makes, it makes perfect sense and you start thinking about the enterprise and how you’re driving across it, and then also against the ous. And then I, we like to talk, talk about the long tail, right?

You start getting into even the mid-size market and then into the smaller accounts.

[00:26:01] Nina Harding: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:01] Vince Menzione: And, and all of the Microsoft toolkit. And the partners toolkit are coming into those customers. We just did a session here last week on MSPs.

[00:26:09] Nina Harding: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:09] Vince Menzione: Because that whole world is changing because they now need to be ready on Microsoft technologies and understand how to work more closely with Microsoft.

’cause it’s no longer the old days where they were turning the crank and worrying about a laptop computer.

[00:26:22] Nina Harding: Yeah.

[00:26:22] Vince Menzione: They are really, they’re, they’re doing AI now. Yeah, they’re doing cloud in a big way

[00:26:26] Nina Harding: and it’s a different, it’s a different model, right? Yeah. Um, we’re very quickly moving away from this transactional sales approach.

Right? That’s right. And I don’t mean to simplify it to that extent, but yeah. The paradigm has shifted to, wow, you’re actually advising a customer on changing their business processes or, yeah. Or, uh, bending the curve on innovation or, uh, what, how do you have more intimacy with your customers? Um, or how do you make.

The day in the life of an employee better. Right, exactly. Those are the, those are the conversations you need to be having and that’s very different.

[00:27:04] Vince Menzione: Very different than the transactional, I want to sell you an EA or whatever the, whatever that conversation was. And that was the old model.

[00:27:10] Nina Harding: Yeah.

[00:27:10] Vince Menzione: To your point, that’s how they need to think differently and operate differently.

You’re starting to see some acquisitions happen, like some of your partners. Mm-hmm. Like Insight is a good example.

[00:27:18] Nina Harding: Yeah.

[00:27:19] Vince Menzione: They’ve gone after organizations that did that. Exactly. That understood solution selling. And bringing the whole portfolio to a customer. Mm-hmm. And you’re starting to see more and more of that m and a activity happening in this market?

Well,

[00:27:30] Nina Harding: it’s critical. Um, it’s no longer go in and position and sell the solution the customer wants you to be. There through the duration to actually have the impact.

[00:27:39] Vince Menzione: So critical. You know, it’s almost like Microsoft picks a theme every year. And this year for me, watching start and seeing Judson up there talking about Frontier for the first time.

Yeah. Uh, I, I love it. Um, it’s not a novel concept, but I, I think the approach is like, we’re gonna lean in in a way that we haven’t before. Yeah. We’re gonna, we’re gonna. Appreciate partners and customers that also lean in on this frontier. Can you, can you take us through what frontier actually means? Yeah.

So we’re

[00:28:07] Nina Harding: talking, we’re, we’re really going hard on front the frontier company, right? Yeah. Um, and what that is, is it’s a mindset shift, right? Think about the frontier. That’s where the, it’s the world of the possible. The West,

[00:28:21] Vince Menzione: I think about the west. The west,

[00:28:22] Nina Harding: right? Um, but it, it’s really around making AI.

Absolutely centric to the way ev everything you do. Yeah. Right. So it’s about the, um, the agenta computing, the use of copilot, um, even GitHub as you’re, you’re developing your solutions and it’s really thinking around what is the world a possibility versus being limited by. What functionality came outta the box.

Right. In theory. Right. Um, so we’re really excited about it and we’re excited about bringing our partners along on the journey. The conversation is shifting. We’re talking about that all the time with customers. It’s just fundamentally, it’s, it’s about exploration of what we can do together. I love that.

Um, as you’re looking at that, we need to almost have the ecosystem in our sellers and every company on the frontier of what is possible, uh, with AI and making sure that we’re as efficient as effective, creating the experiences that are optimal for our clients all the time. And then re-imagining how do you go about serving your customers differently?

[00:29:37] Vince Menzione: I love it. I love Frontier. I’m, I’m ready to get my cowboy hat, Adam. Um, I wanted to spend a minute here, if you don’t mind. I have a favorite question I ask each of my guests. Sure. A little bit off the track of partners, but in a way it ties back into it. So Nina, you are hosting a dinner party and. It could be anywhere in the world.

We were talking about Denmark earlier. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We’re talking about South Florida, talking about New York City. Mm-hmm. Another great location. Mm-hmm. We both, you lived there and I just came back from New York.

[00:30:07] Nina Harding: Yeah.

[00:30:08] Vince Menzione: Um, you can invite any three guests to this dinner party. Mm. Your choice. Present, current, or past?

Some people have even referred to the, in the future, somebody in the future that they would invite to this dinner party.

[00:30:22] Nina Harding: Mm.

[00:30:22] Vince Menzione: Whom would you invite and why?

[00:30:26] Nina Harding: Ooh, that’s a good one. Um, first I’d invite my mom. Um, okay, so I. I lost her at 26, so she never knew me as an adult. So, um, and she was one, you were 26 at the time?

I was 26. Uh, she was 54. Um, and uh, so it would be really interesting to know her as an adult and have an adult conversation around, uh, career family. Children, just the, the way the world works. Uh, she spoke seven languages and watching what’s happening in the, in, in the world today. She was definitely, um, a woman of the world.

Uh, let’s see, who else would I, I’d actually invite my grandfather too, so I’m, I’m leaning in on family. I think I love the family

[00:31:12] Vince Menzione: conversation.

[00:31:12] Nina Harding: Um, the, the reason is I think. Family is so core to who I am. Um, it’s one of my most important values, uh, whether it’s my personal family or my work family. I treat them, um, with that kind of respect.

But with my grandfather, the reason why I’d love to bring him into the conversation is, uh, he was in Denmark and very. Involved in World War ii and, uh, he, I found out he wouldn’t talk about it, um, very much about the resistance in Denmark. But, um, he helped with a lot of, uh, getting the Jews out of Denmark into Sweden on boats at night.

Wow. And I’d love to have. A conversation now that I understand that. Yeah. About it. Yeah. Um, he was also, uh, involved in setting up the eu. He was on the, uh, tax board in Denmark. Uh, and so just to see things that I’m living and breathing in my world today to, to have conversations on what his thought process, he also did business in Burma.

Oh my goodness. Right. And, uh, all over it was a Burma back in the day. Yeah, right. Exactly. And he adopted, uh, a boy from Burma who became my uncle. Wow. Uh, so just the things and the experiences that in today’s world, uh, I never had a chance to explore there. Um, and then in the future. Going back to family.

Uh, I have two little boys, uh, four and 13 months. Oh boy. Can you believe that? Oh boy. I know. I crazy boy. Um, I would love to invite, um, their wife.

[00:32:46] Vince Menzione: Oh, I love that. I love that because

[00:32:48] Nina Harding: I would love for them at this dinner party to meet the previous generations and the roots, um, and have the exposure to the history, the, um, the multicultural nature of our family.

Um, but. The reality is I’m also a little bit older. I don’t know if I’m gonna have the pleasure that you just had a few weeks ago. Oh, such a great with the weddings and I’m really looking forward, um, that I’d have a chance to really spend some meeting time with that. I match that though

[00:33:15] Vince Menzione: as a young child to meet your future wife, like, and for you to meet their future wife at that point.

[00:33:21] Nina Harding: Mm-hmm.

[00:33:21] Vince Menzione: Mm-hmm. And time.

[00:33:22] Nina Harding: It would be pretty cool. Yeah.

[00:33:23] Vince Menzione: And so cool to have your mom back.

[00:33:26] Nina Harding: Oh,

[00:33:26] Vince Menzione: and um, and your granddad. My dad was, I lost my dad when I was in my twenties, so I understand that, like, that hole that you feel like you’ve gone many years without.

[00:33:36] Nina Harding: Yeah.

[00:33:36] Vince Menzione: And he was also World War ii, so, uh, was part, was part of the occu, he was part of the D-Day invasion and the occupation and everything.

So, but

[00:33:45] Nina Harding: yeah.

[00:33:45] Vince Menzione: But that whole generation was so different. They were so quiet about. There, time spent there.

[00:33:50] Nina Harding: Very, very, and I think, um, in today’s world, I, I would love to get to some of those core values and those decision and, um, points and what guided them. Yeah. Um, those truths. So cool. That are part of your core.

[00:34:04] Vince Menzione: I always like to ask this question. It sets us up, uh, as we finish the conversation today. All of our amazing partners that are watching and listening today. Yeah.

[00:34:11] Nina Harding: Yeah.

[00:34:12] Vince Menzione: Nina. We’ve got a big year ahead, right? A lot of, a lot of incredible things. Um, Microsoft, in my opinion, has built the most incredible ecosystem, the largest ecosystem by far, and has done the most work here.

And I think a lot of organizations, I, I tend to go on sometimes with LinkedIn with people, and they really don’t understand how Microsoft operates, which is why we do what we do. We try to help. Them to better, uh, establish relationships and engage and co-sell and mark marketplace and the like with you and your team, what would you say to them now about what they need to start doing as we get into the, because it’s still the summer here, at least a, a

[00:34:50] Nina Harding: few Hey, we’re, we’re, we’re way into Q1 here, right?

So it’s

[00:34:53] Vince Menzione: Q1. We’re, we’re kicking, we’re kicking into the year in big time. Yeah. What if these partners need to do better, differently? How should they be thinking about fiscal year 26?

[00:35:03] Nina Harding: Yeah, well, you’re, you’re hearing it in almost every question you’ve asked. AI is central to everything we’re doing, so, um, get on board, learn.

Um, we know that it can be scary in the beginning there, um, there could be some hesitancy from people, um, and. Uh, I really encourage you, we have so much training, uh, but the most important thing is to become customer zero and to embrace that technology. With yourself and then with your, your colleagues and at your company.

So, so important because how are you gonna position, how are you gonna evolve with your customers if you don’t inherently know? Yeah. Um, I often recommend to people just start with something that’s personal. Yeah. So I’m Danish. Uh, Danish, uh, at birthdays and weddings and celebrations. You write an a song in honor of the bride and groom where?

The birthday. Birthday. Oh, how cool

[00:35:59] Vince Menzione: that is.

[00:35:59] Nina Harding: And, uh, oh gosh. I would sw sweat having to put these songs together to rubber ducky or, oh, Susanna, I, I can go now in to copilot and it can write me a song in 30 seconds. I mean, it’s awesome. So just start with something that. Doesn’t feel scary. Then very quickly it’ll move to performance reviews.

It can, it can move to how you prepare for a customer engagement or a partner engagement. Uh, it can help you innovate on ideas or market opportunities, help you look around corners. So that’s the number one thing. Yeah.

[00:36:34] Vince Menzione: And customer zero. People don’t all understand that. That’s Microsoft’s terminology. We used to say eating your own dog.

Food, food, food. Right? Yeah. Which we don’t use the term dog food any longer, but essentially like use the technology that you’re selling.

[00:36:46] Nina Harding: Absolutely. Absolutely. So that’s the number one thing. Um, because you have to evolve with it. Or unfortunately, I don’t know what that market is gonna look like for you three, five years from now.

[00:37:01] Vince Menzione: And you, the leading indicators will. Show us that you need to be on board. You need to be staying trained every day on top of this because it means that your pipeline, your sales, everything is going to be impacted by that.

[00:37:12] Nina Harding: Yeah. Uh, the second thing that I also encourage for partners is in this world where, um, everyone wants to do everything.

I think the power of differentiating yourself and creating your value proposition is so important. What that means is your value proposition on. Success you’ve had with customers, making sure that that’s tangible in stories and videos, whatever. Um, making sure that you understand by industry what your value proposition is and your depth of expertise.

If you’re doing everything right, you know that expression in your peanut buttering peanut butter, you’re probably not showing up as doing something great that. From a field perspective. So that differentiation is really, really important.

[00:37:56] Vince Menzione: I’ve worked with some of the large, but when I was doing consulting work back in the day before we started up the, the events and podcast, um, these organizations wouldn’t understand how to engage at the OU level.

Mm-hmm. And they didn’t speak the language going into the meetings. Mm-hmm. They’d have, they’d have a healthcare conversation the same as a financial services

[00:38:14] Nina Harding: company. Yeah. You can’t do that anymore. Yeah. And these were

[00:38:15] Vince Menzione: large ISVs. These are multi-billion dollar organizations that don’t understand that.

[00:38:19] Nina Harding: Yeah. Well, and, and that’s what you’re seeing at Microsoft. Uh, in the US we’re a hundred percent verticalized, right? All industry based with Canada, Latin America, but even within the countries you click down one level, it’s verticalized. Yes. So, um, the power of that differentiation and the application to a customer.

Pain point, uh, trends by industry Absolutely critical. So,

[00:38:47] Vince Menzione: so critical.

[00:38:47] Nina Harding: Um, and then the

[00:38:48] Vince Menzione: differentiation, I’m sorry, you mean, but like getting, getting people’s attention, right. You need to be able to show up in a way that people understand what your value looks like.

[00:38:57] Nina Harding: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. You can’t do everything, but you do these things really, really well.

[00:39:02] Vince Menzione: Really well.

[00:39:03] Nina Harding: You want something to pop in the, in, in the, in the mind of the sellers when they hear, yeah. X, y, Z scenario. Right? Absolutely. Um, so that’s, that’s really critical. Uh, I enablement. Um, it is, we are, we are evolving so quickly. If you did training six months ago on ai, I hate to break it to you, it’s a new world.

It’s old ready, right? It’s old. So make it, make it part of like your Friday mornings or your Friday afternoons. Make learning. An experience. It’s part of your routine. It’s something fun. Do it with your colleagues. Share top 10 best tips and tricks. You need to really embrace the enablement piece, um, more so than I think we’ve ever needed to before.

[00:39:48] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And being technical in that regard too. Being, being on top of that. Technical expertise is so critical. Yes. You’ve put more resources there as well. Right. You’ve, you’ve lined up more resources for enablement.

[00:39:59] Nina Harding: Absolutely. You’ll see that in our field sales organization, we shifted where our. Resources are.

So, um, it was in the news, right? We made some, uh, big changes, uh, in early July, but we also are hiring up in other places. Yes. So it wasn’t a net deficit, it’s actually an increase in technical roles. Yeah. Um, so we’re seeing it speaks

[00:40:21] Vince Menzione: to too, as AI has proliferated, uh, our world and our, our movements. Um, we, certain roles are not as important anymore.

The roles that are important are the ones that are more specific to executing performance, which are more technical in nature and enablement. So it makes, this makes perfect sense.

[00:40:39] Nina Harding: Yeah. For example, in uh, the US we have, what, 350 open roles right now for, um, solution engineers. Nice. Nice. So what you’re seeing is this shift and for our partners, I encourage you to look at where the conversation is going.

Um, but what happens is, is that you have to be able to translate between the technology and the business. Yes. And that is what’s so critical right now. Um, I would of course always say, make sure you’re looking at things like your designations and, um, making sure that you’re on top of the incentives and how those are all growing and shifting.

There has been a tremendous amount of investment made into partners this year. Very nice. Um, and then, um, outside, outside of that, I think, let’s have fun. Let’s have fun. Let’s go. Let’s go solve some real. Problems together. Yeah. Let’s innovate together. Let’s collaborate. It’s in the conversation that I’m finding the magic now.

It’s not just in the routine kind of kind of map and play of of, of, um, mapping an AE to an AE on a deal. It’s actually in the exploration of what’s possible. Yeah.

[00:41:53] Vince Menzione: And what’s possible is amazing. We have an incredible year ahead. Yeah. Yeah. And we would love to have you come join us. We’re gonna have a busy.

Fall and winter year. So for those of our. Viewers and listeners who haven’t heard it yet, we just opened up our registration for our rest and event. Washington DC area is always a popular spot, October 27th through the 29th. Great. We’ve got an open invitation for you to come. Great keynote for us. Great.

Uh, we’ll be doing something around Ignite. We don’t know exactly what that looks like. TBD and then this winter we’re gonna be back here. I’ll hopefully be joining you in January Yeah. With, with what you’ll be doing. But then we’ll have some things going on here as well.

[00:42:33] Nina Harding: Great. So

[00:42:33] Vince Menzione: I’d love to have you back here in the studio.

[00:42:34] Nina Harding: Absolutely. Thank you for the opportunity. It’s wonderful to you. It’s so great to make, have

[00:42:38] Vince Menzione: you make the trip today and be with us. Yeah. So great to have you with our partners that are watching a lot of, a lot of which you listen, some, we’re starting to get more YouTube now. More people are watching us.

But, uh, so great to have you here today. So thank you so much for being here.

[00:42:52] Nina Harding: Absolutely. Thank you.

[00:42:53] Vince Menzione: Thank you, Nina. Thank you for watching and listening to this episode of The Ultimate Guide to Partnering. We’re [email protected] or ultimate guide to partnering.com where you can find all information about our community ultimate partner experience, as well as our live events.

And we’ve got a busy fall plan for you where we’re hosting our live event in Reston, Virginia, in the Washington DC area. On October 27th to the 29th, we’re gonna have an amazing list of speakers and people there in the room. So great way to continue learning how to become the ultimate partner and stay tuned ’cause we’ve got more ahead that we’ll be announcing that the fall continues, uh, possibly another event in the fall, as well as being back here in the Boca Studio this winter.

So thank you again for watching and supporting us.

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Is your business ready for 2026?

Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Podcast.

In this insightful episode of The Ultimate Guide to Partnering, host Vince Menzione welcomes Leigh Ann Campbell, CEO of Rev Alliances and a seasoned expert in building successful Microsoft partnerships. Leigh Ann shares her remarkable journey, including her pivotal role in transforming Quest into Microsoft’s number one co-sell partner worldwide. They delve into the critical elements of effective partnering, introducing Leigh Ann’s powerful “FAME” framework: Focus, Audience, Message, and Execution (now “E-squared” with Enablement).

The conversation uncovers practical strategies for navigating the complexities of the Microsoft ecosystem, emphasizing the importance of sales enablement for your own team, understanding Microsoft’s internal scorecards, and aligning partnership goals with your CRO’s revenue objectives. Leigh Ann provides valuable advice on focusing your approach, crafting the right message for the right Microsoft audience, and executing with precision. She also shares her vision for the future of Rev Alliances, including the exciting integration of AI to scale her proven methodologies and help even more partners achieve their greatest results.

Key Takeaways:

Don’t miss this opportunity to gain insider knowledge from industry leaders shaping tomorrow’s digital world. Tune in now for an inspiring conversation that could redefine your business strategy!

Keywords:

Microsoft partnership, co-sell, sales enablement, partner program, ISV, SI, Rev Alliances, Leigh Ann Campbell, Vince Menzione, Ultimate Guide to Partnering, FAME framework, focus, audience, message, execution, enablement, Microsoft sellers, channel partners, partner strategy, alliance management, tech partnerships, B2B partnerships, software partnerships, cloud partnerships, Azure, Microsoft Marketplace, partner center, co-selling with Microsoft, achieving partner success, partner growth, revenue generation, pipeline development, Microsoft ecosystem, navigating Microsoft, partner of the year, product integration, AI in partnerships

If you’re ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community.

At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins.

.

Leigh Ann Campbell Audio Episode

[00:00:00] Leigh Ann Campbell: Sales enablement, uh, not of Microsoft Sellers. This is your sellers. Ah, because it doesn’t, it doesn’t do you any good if the only group within your company who understands Microsoft are the, is the alliance team, right? Because that doesn’t scale. You need your sales people out there doing co-sell with their peers at Microsoft.

[00:00:23] Vince Menzione: We believe this time is like no other. We believe we refer to these as the tectonic shifts,

[00:00:28] Intro: all the hyperscalers in the world, if you add them all together, managed services will be one and a half times larger

[00:00:34] Vince Menzione: because it is the customer buying behavior that has created the need for all of us to rethink our models

[00:00:41] Intro: until we have data quality, the effectiveness of AI cannot be realized, and effectiveness of the partnerships cannot be realized.

[00:00:47] Intro: Can you figure out first, what your purpose is and how Microsoft can support your purpose and how you can support Microsoft purpose? Now we have a partnership. It’s the ultimate partnership.

[00:01:00] Vince Menzione: Welcome to, or welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering. I’m Vince Menzi, own your host, and my mission is to help leaders like you.

[00:01:08] Vince Menzione: Achieve your greatest results through successful partnering. And today I have for you a leader who’s helped organizations drive their greatest results as Pinnacle Partners working with Microsoft. I. Leanne Campbell was a leader that led one of the largest ISVs to the top partner status working with Microsoft.

[00:01:26] Vince Menzione: And today she leads her own company as CEO of Rev Alliances, and I’m privileged to have her join us today here in Boca Raton. Leanne,

[00:01:35] Leigh Ann Campbell: welcome to Boca. Thank you so much for having me.

[00:01:37] Vince Menzione: I’m excited to have you. You know, you and I have known each other for several years. Yep. And when I first met you, you were leading one of the largest partnerships working with Microsoft.

[00:01:46] Vince Menzione: I thought we’d spent some time talking about your career journey and how you got to this point in your career.

[00:01:51] Leigh Ann Campbell: Absolutely. So I was born and raised in Silicon Valley, so uh, just kind of worked out that tech was where I wanted to be and where I landed. So I have spent over 25 years. Wow. You’re too young to be 25.

[00:02:06] Leigh Ann Campbell: You started 10 years

[00:02:08] Vince Menzione: old, I’m sure. Yes.

[00:02:09] Leigh Ann Campbell: Uh, working in all types of companies within Silicon Valley. Right. So I’ve done the startup thing, I’ve done the.com thing, like we’ve talked about. Yes. And you know, later in my career I had a great opportunity to lead sales and alliances for companies like PeopleSoft and HPE.

[00:02:26] Leigh Ann Campbell: So Very cool. I feel like I’ve seen it all. I bet you

[00:02:30] Vince Menzione: have. So tell us about, ’cause the journey to Quest and. My introduction to you was when you were actually leading the alliance strategy for Quest. Mm-hmm. And at that point had taken the organization to the pinnacle working with Microsoft. And I thought maybe you could take us through what that was like, what you, uh, found when you got there, and then how you led the organization into that journey.

[00:02:52] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yeah, thank you. So when I got there, quest had already been around for quite some time. I think they were founded in the late eighties, early nineties. Right. So their claim to fame with Microsoft was their ability to migrate Office 365. Right. So fast forward to when I joined in 2019 ish, they were somewhat struggling to figure out the better together story now that Microsoft had moved on to cloud.

[00:03:20] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yep. Right. So my team and I had the opportunity to kind of rebuild that partnership and so we really started. Looking at what mattered to Microsoft, what mattered to Quest, and figure out how we can get best of both worlds. And so, gosh, four years later, we built Quest into the number one co-sell partner worldwide.

[00:03:42] Vince Menzione: Wow. That was amazing. And I knew Quest from back in my Microsoft days. And they had gone through several lights, I would say.

[00:03:49] Intro: Yep.

[00:03:49] Vince Menzione: They were a private company. Then they became part of Dell. Mm-hmm. And they became private again, or I don’t remember the, the, the path exactly. You came, when you came there, they really weren’t relevant in the Microsoft ecosystem.

[00:04:02] Vince Menzione: So how did you get them there? Like was there any, any learnings or We’re gonna talk a little bit more about what you do today with partners. Yeah. Is there any specific learnings from that experience that you’ve moved forward with?

[00:04:11] Leigh Ann Campbell: Oh my gosh, so many. Uh, I would say overall the value that Quest brought to the table was they really had a wide variety of solutions to help customers, right?

[00:04:22] Leigh Ann Campbell: So. They touched all areas of Microsoft except for dynamics. So the message that we were bringing to the Microsoft sellers were, we can do it all. Like just pick, we’ve got 25 solutions in the marketplace. Yeah. And 25 co-sell approved products. Just pick ’cause we can be your one-stop shop. And I thought, wow, they’re gonna be banging down my door.

[00:04:44] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yep. For all these opportunities, when in reality nobody needs everything. They have a very specific need. Right? And so we went through several years of kind of rebuilding our messaging to make it be more focused to figure out who within Microsoft would. Care about that. Get compensated on it. Right. And so that we could build a joint go to market strategy.

[00:05:06] Vince Menzione: Very cool. Very cool.

[00:05:07] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yeah.

[00:05:07] Vince Menzione: And then you left to go on your own and you started Rev Alliances. Yeah. So tell us a little bit more about Rev Alliances.

[00:05:12] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yeah, so Rev Alliances really came out after we made it to the top with Microsoft as their number one partner for co-sell. We had won partner of the year rewards, right?

[00:05:23] Leigh Ann Campbell: I felt like, wow, we’ve, we’ve really done this. I had a lot of friends and colleagues back in Silicon Valley who were saying, Hey, what were your best practices? What did you do? Could you help me? And I thought, wow, this feels like the logical next step. So, so I made that move and have been helping partners for about two years now.

[00:05:43] Vince Menzione: Very cool. And you work with both ISVs, independent software vendors, which by the way, we’re now calling software companies. After my conversation with Jason Gravy, they’re redefining the category. Then you also work with SI organizations. Yep. Can you elaborate on how you’re helping these companies achieve more?

[00:06:00] Leigh Ann Campbell: Absolutely. So my learnings from my time at Quest as well as all the other organizations I’ve had the chance to work with, I developed a methodology called Fame, fame, fame. Right. And it’s, it’s a, it’s a great song too, but it is a great song. I will, I will not sing it for you. Nor will I, um, and fame is based on what I saw, you know, at my time with Quest.

[00:06:24] Leigh Ann Campbell: But what I’ve also seen across all size organizations, everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame. Yes. Whether it’s your CEO being on stage with Satya Nadella, or your sales executives actually engaging with their peers at a large partner like Microsoft to drive sales, or your salespeople getting. If their phone calls returned.

[00:06:45] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yeah. From sellers wanting to drive business together. Right. It’s difficult. Yeah. So everyone wants that 15 minutes or hopefully more with your partner. And so at my time with Quest, I figured out how to really simplify this whole process of how do you build a partnership and get it to market and drive revenue.

[00:07:03] Leigh Ann Campbell: Pipeline faster. And so that’s, that’s really what FAME is. And Okay. I wanna know, you’re gonna have to tease this out for me. I will. I would love to. There’s an acronym that stands for something. Yes. So FAME stands for focus, audience Message and Execution. Okay. And so you drill down into each one. But I think focus is, is obviously Yeah.

[00:07:25] Leigh Ann Campbell: A hard place to start. ’cause again, if people think I can do it all or they think. I’m a global company, so I wanna touch every continent with my solution. My recommendation is start small. Build your brand with, you know, that sales play or that sales audience or that industry or that location. Okay. And then expand from there.

[00:07:48] Leigh Ann Campbell: Got it.

[00:07:48] Vince Menzione: And,

[00:07:48] Leigh Ann Campbell: and that’s what

[00:07:49] Vince Menzione: we had to do. The focus means different things to me. Yeah. Sometimes it’s clarity, like yeah, this is clarity. Like what is the specific thing you wanna go achieve? Yeah. And then I always talk about maniacal focus. Mm-hmm. Which is another execution level of focus, right. Where just the attention to detail mm-hmm.

[00:08:04] Vince Menzione: On the execution. But what you’re saying here is. You wanna take and focus in an area where you believe intuitively you can be very successful land That first is what you understand it. Yes. And then build from there

[00:08:16] Leigh Ann Campbell: ab. Absolutely. Or, or start where somewhere where you already are successful. Right.

[00:08:21] Leigh Ann Campbell: Because it’s, it’s easy to do the win wires. It’s easy to share your success and get people excited about working with you when you’ve already got the demonstrated success.

[00:08:30] Vince Menzione: Very cool. Yeah. And then what do you, when you’re working with an organization, how do you help ’em get to that point on focus?

[00:08:36] Leigh Ann Campbell: You know, I dive deep into their area of expertise.

[00:08:41] Leigh Ann Campbell: We look a lot at, at sales, past sales to see, you know, is there an area, is there an industry where you have strength? Um, and we kind of start with that as well as their product focus, obviously, because Microsoft has individual product groups as well. Right? And so if your product drives a ton of Azure.

[00:09:01] Leigh Ann Campbell: Let’s go focus with on my next one, which is audience. Let’s go focus your message on the Azure audience, the Azure sellers at Microsoft. So that’s step two is the audience message. Message is, is tricky. You would think it, you know, customers, my partners think we’ve got a whole marketing department, we’ve got great messaging.

[00:09:23] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yes. But is your messaging to your end customer or is it to a Microsoft seller? Ah, to really understand your better together story

[00:09:30] Vince Menzione: and what should it be?

[00:09:31] Leigh Ann Campbell: It should be your better together story. Better, right? It should be, here’s how I can help the customer and here’s how I can help you, how I can help you land and expand in your business, you know, with the partner.

[00:09:44] Leigh Ann Campbell: Let’s go back to audience

[00:09:45] Vince Menzione: for a second. Yep. Um, because I, I remember a slide that you’ve shared when we’ve done presentations together and, uh, it’s, it’s, it’s very interesting ’cause I think a lot of people don’t recognize this piece. In that it’s not one person at Microsoft. Right, right. And that’s where you try to get to with the, with the audience component, if I’m not mistaken.

[00:10:03] Vince Menzione: Right? Absolutely. Um, and that, I think that’s where I think a lot of partnerships fail in that I’ve got a relationship with somebody and that’s where I’m gonna be successful. Something more about how you help them kind of navigate Microsoft.

[00:10:16] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yeah, that’s a, that’s a tough one. Yeah. I mean, everyone knows Microsoft is one of the largest companies in the world and it’s, it’s really complicated to navigate.

[00:10:25] Leigh Ann Campbell: And you know, my first question is always, what’s your scorecard? You know, how are you measured? What does success look like for you as a seller at Microsoft? Because once I understand that, then I can figure out, are you the right person to be working with on this opportunity or not? And I can’t tell you how many times people skip that question.

[00:10:45] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yes. And they think, oh, I’ve got a resource. I’ve got somebody who I can talk to at Microsoft, unfortunately, then will get paid on what you’re, you know. Focused on, yeah. Makes it hard.

[00:10:56] Vince Menzione: And then also the account executive is not necessarily the only seat at the table with the customer. Absolutely. In fact, in many cases they’re the least frequent seat at the table and there’s a whole team.

[00:11:07] Vince Menzione: They’re like the quarterback. Right. And there’s an entire team. There’s a front line and there’s, you know, there’s the whole team is there. Yes. Supporting them. So how do you help them with that component? ’cause that’s also the, a very complex Yep. I think it’s hard for. Other organizations, ISVs and sis alike.

[00:11:22] Vince Menzione: Yep. To figure out that PO component of it,

[00:11:25] Leigh Ann Campbell: the ae. Everyone thinks the account executive, I just need to get to the account executive, and they’re at that 50,000 foot level, like you said, the quarterback to make sure that their customer needs are being met from a bunch of different specialists. Right. And so when I was at Quest.

[00:11:42] Leigh Ann Campbell: We saw, I mean, we sold into large enterprises who had 15 to 20 different sellers. Yeah. Specialists. Across the board. You have Azure specialist, a modern work specialist. The time you had a data and AI specialist. Right. Business applications. Business applica part of the business. Yes. Yes. And so that’s part of the exercise with focus at the very beginning, right.

[00:12:04] Leigh Ann Campbell: Is okay, so let’s figure out where your product fits within Microsoft, and then we can dive deep into the right audience and then the connection. Magically happens and people wanna talk to you because you’re speaking their language.

[00:12:16] Vince Menzione: So let’s talk about the E in fame.

[00:12:18] Leigh Ann Campbell: Okay. E stands, I, I’ve changed it up a bit now.

[00:12:22] Leigh Ann Campbell: It’s E squared. E squared. E squared, yes.

[00:12:24] Vince Menzione: So it’s fame square,

[00:12:26] Leigh Ann Campbell: sort of. Yes. The e, uh, stands for enablement. Okay. Sales enablement. Uh, not of Microsoft Sellers. This is your sellers. Ah, because it doesn’t. It doesn’t do you any good if the only group within your company who understands Microsoft are the, is the Alliance team, right?

[00:12:45] Leigh Ann Campbell: Because that doesn’t scale. You need your salespeople out there doing co-sell with their peers at Microsoft. And so enablement is really teaching your sellers how to speak Microsoft, Microsoft 1 0 1. How are they organized? How to prepare for a account planning session with a rep. Uh. The hardest part is helping them understand, to bring an ask with them.

[00:13:10] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yes. You’d be surprised how many reps, you know, they get in a room and then the Microsoft seller says, what can I do to help? And they’re like, nothing. I, I’m good. It’s, it’s, no, you need to bring an ask. And so that’s so, so enablement. And then the second part is execution. Okay. And so back to your maniacal focus.

[00:13:28] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yeah. That’s here on execution. It’s showing up every day, prepared to have those conversations With Microsoft, it’s. Partner center. Right. There’s a lot being talked about with partner center and Marketplace and it’s a lot. I mean, it’s not for the faint of heart. For

[00:13:43] Vince Menzione: sure. Let’s peel back on this a little bit because we’ve both been in the room with these partners.

[00:13:49] Vince Menzione: Uh, I went back inside to an ISB for two years. Mm-hmm. And I got to see how difficult it was to get people to understand how to work with Microsoft.

[00:13:56] Leigh Ann Campbell: Right.

[00:13:57] Vince Menzione: So what do you do there? I know you, I know you had to do it at Quest and now you’ve done it with other organizations, alliances. It is often that the sales team just doesn’t understand, right.

[00:14:07] Vince Menzione: Right. What, what their role is here mm-hmm. And their expectations. So I want to, I want to kind of peel back a little bit on the expectation piece.

[00:14:15] Leigh Ann Campbell: I think that’s a really good point In my experience, uh, your fastest path to success with your Microsoft partnership is having buy-in from your CRO. Yeah. The CRO if, if you can align.

[00:14:29] Leigh Ann Campbell: Your KPIs or your goals and objectives to your CROs sales goals. He or she will be your best friend and your biggest advocate and really drive that message along with you to their sellers, right? Versus if you’re the alliance team saying, here’s something else you need to do and remember, and another group of people I’m gonna help you build trust with.

[00:14:52] Leigh Ann Campbell: That’s, that’s a tough road, right? But if it starts with you and the CRO, uh, you know. You’re gonna be successful.

[00:14:59] Vince Menzione: So how do you set expectations accordingly with the CRO? Because some of them just don’t get it.

[00:15:05] Leigh Ann Campbell: Uh, well, you have to speak their language. Yeah. Which is sales, pipeline and revenue. Yeah. So you start with that, right?

[00:15:10] Leigh Ann Campbell: You talk about Microsoft being, you know, in 99% of every account you’re ccro is gonna want to break into. I would start there. I would talk about Microsoft’s ability to influence. Opportunities, which I think it’s overlooked a lot, right? Yes. CROs are saying, I want net new opportunities. Net new logos and pipeline.

[00:15:32] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yes, that’s all good, that’s all good. But Microsoft can actually help influence an opportunity for you in a couple different ways. One would be, uh, you know, one-to-one seller prep for an opportunity you could be talking about. You know, they could help you understand the procurement process and some challenges you might face and really just help you.

[00:15:54] Leigh Ann Campbell: What other partners are in there that you should be working with, things like that, that you might not know. Right. That’s right. They have situational awareness of the whole customer.

[00:16:00] Vince Menzione: Absolutely. From there, the seven Cs at the table we like to talk about.

[00:16:03] Leigh Ann Campbell: Exactly. Right. So I think you mentioned setting expectations.

[00:16:07] Leigh Ann Campbell: I think if you work with your CRO and help them understand the value that Microsoft can actually bring, which is again, its influence, it’s potentially down the road, net new opportunities, but Right. You have to crawl before you walk or run. Right.

[00:16:22] Vince Menzione: I love that piece. And then also, um, you were talking about like some of the thing ways that they help, I mean, I’ve actually seen an account executive go into an account where the customer wanted to go in a different direction and they’ve, they’ve leaned the customer into your direction.

[00:16:38] Vince Menzione: Mm-hmm. Because they felt like you were the better solution if you built these relationships. Right. You talk.

[00:16:42] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yeah. And it’s all about building trust. And the, the fastest way to do that with a Microsoft seller is to, a, make it easy. Right. Be a partner that’s easy to work with, um, be able to speak their language.

[00:16:56] Leigh Ann Campbell: Again, that’s why the enablement piece is so important for the seller. Um, and execute and follow through.

[00:17:02] Vince Menzione: You talked about scorecard and I think that’s an overlooked area as well because, uh, partners show up and they’re like, I got the best solution. I’ve got the most technologically, uh, efficient people.

[00:17:12] Vince Menzione: Mm-hmm. Um, the best price. Like they come in with, especially sis do this, I remember with some of the big sis that I worked with. They just didn’t understand that scorecard component. Mm-hmm. With the, the win Right. For the Microsoft side. Right. Maybe we could spend a few moments on that with us.

[00:17:26] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yeah. So all this, we talked about the complexity of the Microsoft sales organization, and so each team, as you know, has a different scorecard.

[00:17:35] Leigh Ann Campbell: They’re measured on different, different things right within the account, and so being able to understand that and align yourself. Uh, to that scorecard is ultimately gonna help be a win-win for you and the Microsoft rep. Uh, but it’s also helpful to know if you’re not aligned, right? Because then you’re not wasting your time.

[00:17:54] Vince Menzione: So, let’s talk about some of your clients and the work that you’ve been doing at Rev Alliances. How about an example for our viewers and listeners today of how you’ve helped an organization get to that next level? I like to talk about achieving your greatest results. Yeah, because it’s, it’s, it’s measurably different for every organization to say.

[00:18:12] Vince Menzione: Growth of 30% or we’re gonna drive X number of dollars in net new revenue and so on. Right. Give us an example of some of the work that you’ve done.

[00:18:20] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yeah, so I, one that comes to mind is a very large enterprise data company. Um, and this is slightly different than what we’ve been talking about with sales, where they were, they had a co-sell rhythm with Microsoft, and, and it was going relatively well.

[00:18:36] Leigh Ann Campbell: But what they really wanted was some deeper product integration. That’s really where they felt like that was the next step for them. Interesting. And while they had contacts, they were just struggling to get anything to move forward. Right. And so they brought me in. We kind of revisited fame with them and you know, I think we spent the most time on focus because their data platform really plugged into a lot of different areas within Microsoft.

[00:19:01] Leigh Ann Campbell: So we said, let’s hone the focus Right on. What Microsoft really is driving right now, and let’s reach out to the team and try to drive that message together. So, so we worked on that. We did quite a bit of product integration. We also continued to show support through co-sell. There was a, obviously a ton of co-sell engagement, marketplace, all of that.

[00:19:25] Leigh Ann Campbell: But at the end of about six months, we had this partner on stage with Microsoft at Ignite. Announcing their new product integration.

[00:19:35] Vince Menzione: Very cool. Yeah. And you’re outta work with a different set of, uh, people or even organizations at Microsoft in this case, right? Yes. You’re not just working with the field sales organization,

[00:19:43] Leigh Ann Campbell: right?

[00:19:44] Vince Menzione: You’re working with the product group.

[00:19:45] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yep.

[00:19:45] Vince Menzione: What do you, do you find that that’s easier or harder?

[00:19:49] Leigh Ann Campbell: Gosh, it’s just different. Yeah. I, I don’t know if it’s easier or harder, but, but what I have learned is that. Don’t assume that because you’re talking to one part of Microsoft, that the other part of Microsoft knows what’s happen happening.

[00:20:04] Leigh Ann Campbell: Oh. Or about the goodness that you’re driving. Right.

[00:20:06] Vince Menzione: Listen, listen here carefully to those who are watching us today, because this is something I see so often. Oh, we, uh, Microsoft loves us. Mm-hmm. They told us they wanna work with us, right. And they want us to, and then you find out that the people that you were talking to have are totally disconnected from the organization that really matters, that are facing the customer, right.

[00:20:26] Leigh Ann Campbell: It happens. And I mean, it happens in all large organizations. It’s not unique to Microsoft. And I think, you know, everyone’s got their priorities and their focus and the product team wants to build the best product with the best integration they can. Yes. And, and that’s what they’re gonna go focus on. So, yeah.

[00:20:42] Vince Menzione: So, you know, we’ve, I keep talking about this time of tectonic shifts. We talk about the world has changing rapidly. It’s just amazing. Right? We were living in, uh, 2025 and. I, I fa I go back to October when we did our last event and now to today. And so much has changed even since then. Right? Right. We are in a time new, new administration.

[00:21:03] Vince Menzione: We’ve talking about acceleration of change with technology and ai, but even in the last month or two, uh, new administration, uh, Stargate, huge investments in ai. Big changes in the tech landscape. We had the, I call it the deep seek moment now. Like everybody, the world got disrupted. Nvidia lost like an incredible amount of, I think it was $600 billion of value in one day.

[00:21:27] Vince Menzione: In one day. It was crazy. And now we’ve almost forgotten about that moment. Right. And you know, kind of anticipating where the next moment’s been. Yep. How are you helping the organizations you work with navigate through the change?

[00:21:40] Leigh Ann Campbell: Gosh, there, there’s plenty of it. I would say. Fame. I, you know, just to go back to fame, I would say it keeps you grounded, right?

[00:21:50] Leigh Ann Campbell: Because you can build a business plan, you can, you can really understand your path forward with Microsoft, specifically with this framework. And so it’s easy to chase the next shiny thing, right? Or, you know, whatever’s on the horizon. But you, you need to stay focused so that you can show success and then go from there.

[00:22:12] Leigh Ann Campbell: Right? So I, I do feel like I spend a lot of time pulling my customers back, right? Keeping, reminding them, remember we agreed on this focus area, and they’re like, that’s right, that’s right. So I, I would say, you know, fame really helps me do that.

[00:22:26] Vince Menzione: I love it. I love it. Bring it back to the point, right? Bring ’em back to where the most important matters are.

[00:22:32] Vince Menzione: You have to drive and have, and have the framework around it. So there’s some predictability through the change, right? So you’ve been part of our community. Uh, we talked a little bit about this, like I’ve known you for several years now. When we first started up, ultimate Partner, we did the Mastermind.

[00:22:45] Vince Menzione: Mm-hmm. Partnered on that, right? That was the first time I got to see you up on stage and talking about fame, which has been incredible. You’ve been part of our ultimate partner experience community. So, so excited to have you along on the journey. We’ve done some work together over the years. Uh, I know this, but I, I think for our audience, I would love for them to hear from you.

[00:23:03] Vince Menzione: What makes Rev Alliances unique. The value you bring to them that is different, I believe, than what a lot of other organizations, consulting organizations or co-selling organizations do different.

[00:23:15] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yeah. Thank you. And thank you for, for including me in Ultimate Partner and this, this journey has really been fun.

[00:23:22] Leigh Ann Campbell: We’re having fun. It’s very fun. Yeah, so I would say experience is really what’s unique about me and Rev Alliances. So unlike I would say some competitors out there. I’ve personally never worked at Microsoft, which you might think is a, is a negative. I see it as a positive because I had to figure out Microsoft from the outside.

[00:23:45] Leigh Ann Campbell: Right. I had to figure out how to break down barriers and how to gain access to places that I couldn’t otherwise. Right? Sure. So. Five plus years of experience kind of hitting my head against the wall, right is, is now, you know, it shows up in fame and it shows up every time I work with a client, so, so my company, rev Alliances, the name Rev kind of plays on.

[00:24:11] Leigh Ann Campbell: Uh, revenue. Right. And also kind of

[00:24:14] Vince Menzione: important,

[00:24:14] Leigh Ann Campbell: kind of important, but also what I think is unique about Rev is that we help customers get there faster. I help my partners get to revenue, get to pipeline faster. Right. And I do that because of that experience that I’ve had.

[00:24:28] Vince Menzione: And that’s something that’s a term too, that the CRO.

[00:24:31] Vince Menzione: Implicitly understands. Right, right. Because they wanna get to Rev, they wanna get to revenue faster.

[00:24:36] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yes.

[00:24:37] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Yes. I love that name and I love the branding.

[00:24:39] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yeah. Thank you.

[00:24:40] Vince Menzione: It’s so cool. So, um, what’s, what’s on the horizon? Like, we have a lot of great things we’re gonna be doing together. You’re gonna be doing more work with us in the community, sharing some more of your knowledges with our, with our Ultimate Partner experience community.

[00:24:54] Vince Menzione: But where do you see Rev Alliances in five years?

[00:24:57] Leigh Ann Campbell: That’s a great question. Uh, I am. Like a lot of people, I’m thinking about AI and I’m wondering how can I use that right. To really serve more clients? Because right now, a one-to-one engagement, while it’s my favorite thing to do, it doesn’t scale. Right.

[00:25:15] Leigh Ann Campbell: Right. To 15, 20, 50 clients at a time. And so I’m in the works right now, uh, to apply AI to my FAME framework. Very cool. So that, yeah, so that. You know, uh, with maybe a lighter touch, I can help more partners, more efficiently, um, as well as, you know, engage one-on-one as needed. So, I’m, I’m excited to roll out something soon.

[00:25:40] Leigh Ann Campbell: Very cool. Yeah.

[00:25:41] Vince Menzione: So we’re gonna switch to the rapid fire.

[00:25:44] Leigh Ann Campbell: Okay.

[00:25:44] Vince Menzione: We’re testing this new area out for us, and I, I wanna ask you a few questions that I think might be, I love it. Talk a little bit more about like the, the, the world that you live in and how you got to this point. Okay. So. What book has influenced you the most?

[00:25:58] Vince Menzione: Liam,

[00:26:00] Leigh Ann Campbell: I most recently read Atomic Habits and that one. Really? James Cleary? Yes. That one. You know, it’s, it’s not often that I, uh, I don’t read, uh, that I would read something nonfiction cover to cover. I. I couldn’t put it down and, you know, the whole idea of habit stacking has, has really helped me kind of, uh, especially as I’ve built out Rev Alliances.

[00:26:22] Vince Menzione: Very cool. And what did you get, like from the habit stacking? Was there anything specifically that it helped you improve on?

[00:26:27] Leigh Ann Campbell: Absolutely. So as an entrepreneur, right, there’s a lot of things I love to do and there’s a lot of things I don’t love to do, like back office, things that, you know, you don’t really think about when you’re launching business.

[00:26:38] Leigh Ann Campbell: And so it’s kind of taught me how to avoid. Procrastinating on those things, right? By stacking something that I love to do with something that I don’t love to do.

[00:26:48] Vince Menzione: Yeah, so what’s one habit you can’t live without?

[00:26:51] Leigh Ann Campbell: I would say my morning coffee outside on my patio, so rain or shine. Seriously, for the past eight to nine years, I have to have my first cup of coffee outside and I might be wearing like a down jacket or you know, it might be raining.

[00:27:06] Leigh Ann Campbell: It doesn’t matter because it’s just that chance to breathe in the new day. Um, you know, and just start the day with, with a positive, fresh look, outlook, you know what I mean? A fresh outlook in life.

[00:27:20] Vince Menzione: So is there a mantra that inspires you? Is there something that inspires you?

[00:27:25] Leigh Ann Campbell: There is, and I actually recite it when I’m having my coffee every morning.

[00:27:29] Leigh Ann Campbell: Um, and so it’s be present, take action, and have fun. Wow. Those are my. Present,

[00:27:36] Vince Menzione: take action.

[00:27:37] Leigh Ann Campbell: Have fun. Fun. And the have fun part is probably the most important part because, you know, we’re so wrapped up in our to-do lists and you know, overachieving and all those things. And at the end of the day, I mean, life is short.

[00:27:48] Leigh Ann Campbell: You need to have fun,

[00:27:50] Vince Menzione: which is hardest in the three

[00:27:53] Leigh Ann Campbell: for me personally. Um. I would say taking action sometimes is hard. And, and I say that because, you know, we tend to overthink. Mm-hmm. Right. Or, uh, we let trying to be perfect, get in the way of actually executing. Yeah. Right. So, so that’s something I’m working on this year.

[00:28:13] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yeah.

[00:28:14] Vince Menzione: Very cool. Yeah. So what does mastery mean to you? You know, we’ve had Michael Dravet on the podcast finding Mastery, and what does mastery mean to you?

[00:28:24] Leigh Ann Campbell: Mastery to me means simplification. Okay. Right. There’s a saying, you know, if you can’t explain something simply, you don’t understand it well enough.

[00:28:34] Leigh Ann Campbell: Very cool. Right. And I think that’s what I bring to the table for my clients, for my experiences. Right. There’s so much you could do with Microsoft, literally. I mean, there’s new programs every day. I mean, they do so much for their partners. Yeah. Um. If you simplify things right, and if you stay true to your focus, focus,

[00:28:57] Vince Menzione: yes.

[00:28:58] Leigh Ann Campbell: Uh, you can really simplify and streamline and get to that revenue target, get to your pipeline, get to your 15 minutes of fame on stage with Satya, you can get there so much faster. But you have to, you have to be clear and keep it simple. And I think if you can do that, then you can master

[00:29:17] Vince Menzione: anything. So good.

[00:29:18] Vince Menzione: So good. So I have a favorite question, can I to ask almost every guest. You’re hosting a dinner party and, um, you can host this dinner party anywhere in the world. We could talk about locations. In fact, maybe Boca may be a good location, but you can invite any three guests from the present or the past to this amazing dinner party.

[00:29:37] Vince Menzione: Whom would you invite, Leanne and why?

[00:29:40] Leigh Ann Campbell: Gosh, only three.

[00:29:42] Vince Menzione: Well, yeah. Well we can, we can talk about changing the rules.

[00:29:45] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yeah. Okay. We’ll stick with’s, focus on this. We Okay. Fair. I’ll pick three. Um, okay. This is gonna be a crazy donor party. Okay. Right. So first of all, it needs to be in Hawaii. You like party, like just who knows?

[00:29:59] Leigh Ann Campbell: Who knows. But Hawaii for sure. Okay. Right. My favorite place

[00:30:02] Vince Menzione: in the world. You spent some time there. I

[00:30:03] Leigh Ann Campbell: have. Um, so, okay, so number one, it’s Tommy Lasorda. Oh wow. Tommy Lasorda was the general manager for the Dodgers, and I am a huge Dodger fan and I have been my whole life. Yep. So I’ve heard he’s quite a character.

[00:30:17] Leigh Ann Campbell: I did get a chance to meet him once. Did you? Yep. Very cool. Yep. And love him and would just love to talk to him about his management style, and I’m sure he has some crazy stories as well. Yeah, and

[00:30:27] Vince Menzione: he’s a,

[00:30:28] Leigh Ann Campbell: yeah. Yep. So he is number one. Number two. I am, I’m leaning toward Princess Diane. Okay. I just, you know, she’s so full of grace.

[00:30:36] Leigh Ann Campbell: She was a wonderful, uh, mother human, you know, did so much for people. Would love, love to hear from her. And then the last one, you’re gonna laugh, uh, I’m gonna say Eddie Van Halen. Eddie Van. Yeah. Eddie Van Halen. Wow. Yes, yes. I’m a, I’m a huge eighties rock fan. Okay. And, um, hair and everything. Yeah, sure.

[00:30:57] Leigh Ann Campbell: Absolutely. And, and he, you know, obviously he’s, he’s amazing tourist, amazing. And I would, you know, he could be the. The musical entertainment for the night. Oh my goodness.

[00:31:08] Vince Menzione: What a great group. Yeah. I’m gonna have to come along and bring dessert, a beverage. Please, please. So Tommy Lasorda, I got to see the Yankees and the Dodgers play.

[00:31:16] Vince Menzione: Mm-hmm. When I was young growing up. Yeah. In the New York area and got to see Tommy Lasorda. Yeah. From a distance. Mm-hmm. In the dugout. But, uh, wow. Wasn’t a grit. He always bled Dodger blue. I’m remember read that was his famous saying. Yes. Yes. A passionate human being. Yes. Lady die, of course. Uh, just, you know what an incredible human and Eddie Van Halen like.

[00:31:37] Vince Menzione: Yeah. I’m rocking it out. I love that music.

[00:31:40] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yeah, me too.

[00:31:41] Vince Menzione: Very cool. Yep. It has been such a pleasure studying time with you today. I’m so glad. Thank you, Boca. Me too. All the way from San Francisco. It’s, yep. A long trip and we do appreciate you doing that. And for our listeners and viewers, maybe some. Advice for them on how they can optimize for success as we really dive in to 2025.

[00:32:01] Leigh Ann Campbell: Well, if you’re not working with Microsoft, uh. I definitely would, would recommend looking into that, especially if your product supports any of the Microsoft platforms. Uh, and then going forward, I have to go back to fame. Obviously, stay focused on your strength. Right. Don’t chase too many shiny objects.

[00:32:19] Leigh Ann Campbell: Yeah. Uh, and you will be successful. And I will say if your, if your viewers out there, uh, would like to contact me, rev alliances.com or uh, on LinkedIn is, is a great way to connect with me and I would. I’d love to help. And you’re Leon Leanne Campbell on

[00:32:34] Vince Menzione: LinkedIn as well? Yes. Are you the only Leanne Campbell?

[00:32:38] Vince Menzione: Uh, of course. Okay. Congrats. Wonderful. So I wanna thank you. I wanna thank Leanne, I wanna thank you for joining us today. Thanks for wanting. I wanna thank all our viewers and listeners for following along on our path and our journey to help you achieve more. And if you haven’t done so, are ready, please subscribe to our podcast.

[00:32:54] Vince Menzione: If you’re following on Apple or Spotify, you can hit the subscribe button. And we could also follow us on our new YouTube channel. And getting more subscribers to YouTube also helps us get more views and helps us get more amazing guests like Leanne to join us. I want to thank you for following and listening to this episode of The Ultimate Guide to Partnering, and you could also follow along by joining us on our website.

[00:33:16] Vince Menzione: There you’ll find information about our events, every episode of the podcast, and you can subscribe to our free newsletter. So join us by coming to the ultimate partner.com. I.

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Is your business ready for 2026?

Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Podcast.

Join Alistair Butler, Jennifer Weis, and Steve Hale in a deep dive into Microsoft’s Small, Medium, and Corporate (SME&C) business – aptly called the “Acre of Diamonds.” This session unveils how Microsoft’s intentional decision to establish SMEC as its fourth and fastest-growing region, now a $72 billion business, creates unparalleled opportunities for partners. Learn about the MCEM framework, a common methodology for solution selling, and how partners can strategically align their sales organizations, leverage Microsoft’s investments, and build a “win formula” to unlock immense customer value and profitability in this high-growth segment.

Key Takeaways:

If you’re ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community.

At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins.

Key Tags:

Microsoft partners, Acre of Diamonds, SME&C, mid-market, channel business, MCEM, Microsoft investments, partner programs, solution selling, Azure consumption, customer value, win formula, executive buy-in, sales alignment, territory planning, ATU, STU, ecosystem multiplier, partner profitability, co-sell, services revenue.

.

Key Tags:

Microsoft, Lori Borg, Microsoft Partner, Go-to-Market, Technical Agility, Organizational Agility, AI, Agentic AI, Ecosystem, Partnerships, Growth Mindset, Digital Transformation, Business Strategy, Innovation, Technology, Microsoft Americas, Channel Partners, Sales, Marketing, Engineering, Customer Success, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Cloud, Satya Nadella, Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Change Management, Business Growth, Co-selling, Solution Areas, Digital Marketing, Cloud Computing, Microsoft Programs, Partner Hub, Future of Work, Tech Trends.

Transcription:

Transcription:

[00:00:00] Jennifer Weis: My recommendation to a partner is if you wanna get serious in this space, go figure out what solution you’re gonna go sell. Build your wind formula, set how many goals you’re gonna do, and then build a territory plan.

[00:00:14] Vince Menzione: We believe this time is like no other. We believe we refer to these as the tectonic shifts,

[00:00:20] Intro: all the hyperscalers in the world, if you add them all together.

Managed services will be one and a half times larger because it is the customer buying behavior that has created the need for all of us to rethink our models. Until we have data quality, the effectiveness of AI cannot be realized and effectiveness of the partnerships cannot be realized. Can you figure out, first, what your purpose is and how Microsoft can support your purpose and how you can support Microsoft purpose?

Now we have a partnership. It’s the ultimate partnership.

[00:00:52] Vince Menzione: Welcome to The Ultimate Guide to Partnering. I’m Vince Menzi, own your host, and my mission is to help leaders like you achieve your greatest results through successful partnering. We just came off Ultimate Partner Live at Microsoft Redmond Campus.

Our most powerful event yet over two days. We gathered top leaders to tackle the real shifts shaping our industry. If you weren’t in the room, this episode featuring Alistair Butler and Jen Weiss of Microsoft and Steve Hale, a partner from suse, brings us to the conversation of the acre of diamonds and how to achieve your greatest results.

Working with Microsoft, it’ll bring us to the edge of what’s next. So let’s dive in now. So I’m excited to help lead this conversation with you all. And this is, has a very unique theme. It’s called Acre of Diamonds, and anybody who knows who about acre of Diamonds, it’s actually a fairly common term. It was a thesis.

Russell Conwell who created Temple University in Philadelphia, which has become an outstandingly successful university system, wrote this thesis about your acre of diamonds. And I’ve been talking about how Microsoft, especially its S-M-C-E-N-C business, its small, medium enterprise and channel business, that mid-market is really your acre of diamonds.

’cause so many partners tried to focus in on the very top at the tip, tip of the top. And we talked about that. Yesterday, Nicole and I had that conversation about like focusing in this area. So I’m thrilled to welcome on stage. Alistair, Jennifer and Steve, thank you for joining us. Come on out. Come on out.

Woohoo. We got some, a kickass team here. Jennifer, so great to see you. I heard

[00:02:36] Jennifer Weis: that introduction. I’m a little, I’m

[00:02:38] Vince Menzione: sorry. Whoops. I’m dropping things. I’m gonna grab it for you.

[00:02:41] Jennifer Weis: Where to go.

[00:02:41] Vince Menzione: Yeah. I didn’t want to get. You know, start attaching. Thanks. Good to see Alison. I don’t think I can live up to that side.

See my friend introduction. Oh, we know. We all kind of know that. So, um, we’ve got an incredible panel conversation today and I really wanted to spend some time with each of you. I thought we’d take a moment just from a context perspective, have you intro, because I did a little bit of an introduction, but I didn’t do it justice, to have each of you introduce yourselves.

Your roles in your organizations, and then we can talk about like, how do we take advantage of this business opportunity. So Steve,

[00:03:13] Steve Hale: we’ll start with you since great to see you, Vince. Great to see you, sir. Well, it’s a pleasure to be here. Thanks so much for the invitation. I appreciate it. Real. Uh, quick background.

I think I’ve worked in four different buildings around campus here, over my, my career. But, uh, you know, right now I run, uh, software, uh, partnerships at suse. So it’s a really a pleasure to be here with all of you. So great to have you in the room. Alistair.

[00:03:35] Alistair Butler: Thank you for the opportunity. Lovely to be here, Vince.

So good morning everybody. My name’s Alistair Butler. I run our, um, mid-market West business here in our SME and C

[00:03:47] Vince Menzione: business. Right. And you, and you’re even struggling with that we call SMC. I know, I know. We,

[00:03:52] Alistair Butler: we, we, on the day it happened, we are, we EC now, but uh, we’ve moved a little bit past that. There was intentionality for it.

Yeah, of course. Our mid-market customers, um, you know, we really wanted the enterprise piece in that small, medium enterprise and channels

[00:04:08] Vince Menzione: and just to find that. Mar the, the, the scope that you have. ’cause it’s a very significant, you talk about it very casually. Yes. Like you have a lot of customers in that market.

Yeah.

[00:04:17] Alistair Butler: So, um, I think many of you would understand, um, Microsoft’s regions and SME and C as its fourth Yep. Uh, region. That’s a $72 billion business in, of its own right. Um, you can do the math on roughly what that’s going to be in the us. Um, but for me, I have, um. Um, small, medium, uh, corporate customers or enterprises.

5,000 of those through the western part of the us

[00:04:41] Vince Menzione: Yes. That’s a very significant number. Absolutely. 5,000 just in the us in the western us.

[00:04:47] Alistair Butler: Yeah. And then I have a peer, uh, Noman Act who has a similar sized business on the east, and then we have a Canadian team in the Latin team and a team.

[00:04:54] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And after Jen, I’m gonna ask you a que another question about how your team is organized as well.

Sure. But Jen, kick ass, by the way, I do know I’ve known you for many years. Um, you have an excellent reputation from partners about the work that you do in helping organizations, and I got to see up on stage yesterday as well. So,

[00:05:13] Jennifer Weis: yeah. Well, thank you for having me. Here I am. My role today is I’m actually A PDM in our global SI organization, but I heard Vince mention some of my history and you talked to Lori this morning and you talked to Alyssa this morning and you’re asking the number of years, and I started counting back and I’m like, I’ve been in the Microsoft ecosystem for.

30 years, so, and we were just joking right? Outta school? Yeah, we were just joking behind back there. I said I was a Microsoft partner when I received a fax to put an internet email. For a company with Microsoft Mail, an exchange for, oh, beta was just coming out. So I’ve been, I’ve been in the Microsoft ecosystem since then and uh, I’ve worked for small sis, I’ve worked for medium size sis working on that.

SMC or back then, I don’t remember. It was. Called SMB, I think we know it’s something else. And then I heard you mention CDW as the director of software sales at CDW. And that’s where kind of the conversation today will come in from what I did at CDW to take it from a, you know, 200 million to a billion dollar, you know, Microsoft business there just a number of years.

And then went to an ISV. So I got the ISV part of it, a partner to partner part of it. Now I sitting here representing kind of the Microsoft PDM, but a lot of the stuff I do now is all the stuff that I did when I was a partner and how I learned to be agile and really evaluate every year what’s Microsoft doing and how am I gonna have to change the business and change it really quick to drive results.

[00:06:48] Vince Menzione: And the work is that you do is very in instructional to organizations like Steve’s. About how to align for success. So I think it’ll be a little bit of a cross conversation here. You bet. But Alistair, I want to spend a moment here a little bit more of a double click. So first of all, 5,000 organizations is fairly significant.

Yes. For any of you who don’t know, there’s probably about 11,000 enterprise organizations at the very, very top of the pyramid. Maybe even less than that today. ’cause it, you know, down. So you’ve got a number almost equal to that, just in the Western United States. Yes. And then you have sellers, you have leaders, you have, uh, managers or leaders underneath you as well.

Yes. Talk about how your organization is structured a little bit for the, for the partner. Yes.

[00:07:32] Alistair Butler: Very, very happy to. So one of the things that, uh, within Microsoft and end caps that the way we try to run the business, of course, is with consistency. So just like, um, leaders in the strategic parts of our business where they have an account team unit, an A TU, um, and then those are supported by our stews.

Our, um, uh, specialist technical units we’re exactly the same. We’re exactly the same. So we have an a TU layer, and then we have our stews in the Azure space and biz apps and in modern work and, uh, and security. So, you know, there’s a number of layers to that, to, to get to that, uh, amount of reach or so. But I think one of the things that I would stress as to, um, where we are at now as a company, it was a very intentional decision, um, by Satya and, and, and Amy to, um.

Create SME and C as it is now. Yes. This was a decision 18 months ago into Microsoft’s fourth. Region prior to and forever and a day, we were actually part of the geographic regions. That’s right. We would roll up to them, but, um, it’s now Microsoft’s largest region at $72 billion. It’s also, its fastest growing region at $72 billion.

So, um, for any of you who have been around us for a while or worked with big companies, when a decision like that is made, it’s. Big. Yeah. All of a sudden we are not sharing resources with strategics. We have our own teams, uh, with uh, GPS, with um, our SE and O teams marketing. And that will take time to mature and of itself.

But with the new leader that we have, um, we’re very much elevating, uh, the investment into, into, into the segment. And, uh, that should be opportunity for all of us.

[00:09:28] Vince Menzione: And I just wanna differentiate for those who are watching and, and paying attention today. ’cause I, you bring up some interesting points. If you’ve been around Microsoft long enough as I have it, we, it was sort of a, we didn’t pay enough attention.

We didn’t have the right rigor and we didn’t have consistency because every region, every geography, every industry, in fact, public sector being one of the industries would treat that part of the market differently. And we didn’t put the right level of investments depending on where the investments got laid across the business.

By creating that fourth region, you created a level of consistency, dependability about execution structure, organizational structure, investments that did not exist in Microsoft. And that’s why to me, it has become an acre of retirements,

[00:10:13] Alistair Butler: um, completely and. Um, to su to suggest that, you know, our success will, um, come with the partner community as part of that segment is a gross understatement.

Yes. Everything that we are, uh, building, um, in our programs, in our M stem phases, in our training and enablement, um, is now going very much through a part lens. And, you know, that’s why it’s so wonderful to be chatting to a few folks here today

[00:10:40] Vince Menzione: and. Just a few years ago. In fact, when it was first stood up, it wasn’t getting the same level of attention from the partners.

It’s one of the reasons why we have you here. Yes. Uh, and it also wasn’t, um, set up in a way, or the commitment wasn’t quite there. I remember it was about a few years ago, first conversations I had with then the leader of the organization who was Kevin Piker about doubling down. Like it was the first like foot in the ground saying, we are gonna double down now we’re gonna bring partners in.

Uh, you mentioned that having the scale of the organization, but you also have, I will say, I’ll suggest, uh. Your organization is structured so that you have maybe, uh, more accounts per rep Yes. Than when you get up to the very largest enterprises account. So I might have Coca-Cola and that’s my only account, but when I get into, which is very, a very significant organization’s, what you call small medium.

Enterprise. They’re still very big companies and most companies, they are enterprise big enterprises

[00:11:36] Alistair Butler: in other technology companies. Completely. It just speaks to Microsoft’s reach and brand and, you know, what’s over a $200 billion business today. But yeah, so look, the, at the higher strategics, you know, that’s a one to five type ratio in accounts.

Then we get into majors growth. Um, that might be anything from five to. To 20. And then it’s our, then it’s our segment that comes in. We top out at 50, 60 accounts per rep, but it’s in that a TU and stew model, which we actually run, um, in pretty thoughtfully designed pods. So small teams are really hunting in those pods with their partners, um, with their partners.

And, uh, um, the ability to reach the customers with that is with those partners.

[00:12:22] Vince Menzione: I wanna dive in a little bit and I’m going to ask the perspective from the partners in the room. Steve, you and then also get Jennifer’s perspective as a partner development manager. How do you engage, how do you find the engagement?

What, what, what is, what is the type of engagement you do? What, what are best practices you can share with our community here?

[00:12:40] Steve Hale: Yeah. It’s, it’s a great question. I think, um, if, if I’m sitting in the audience and I, I don’t, I don’t know. What your size and scale is. If you’re a smaller consulting partner or you, you’re a part of a, a larger, you know, technology company, an ISV or who, whomever, the way I look at it is sort of the so what factor, like what we know that we have a huge ecosystem to be able to tap into with Microsoft.

And so, you know, at the end of the day, how do we do it? How do we do that in a way that’s gonna help us drive solution selling? So, um, we were talking a little bit earlier. When, um, so I, when I did this at Microsoft, I just remember bomber would, would, he would pound his hand on the, on the conference room table, and he said, the field is always right unless proven wrong.

So the business units were already saying, Hey, we’re gonna build these solutions. We’re gonna have this stuff, we’re gonna go to market. Yeah. And he would come in and pound his fist and say, the, the field is always right unless proven wrong. And so what he meant by that, where we’re. You know, preparing for the midyear reviews, right, with the 90 slide deck.

And then the, you know, six point font was all about like, how are we gonna drive customer solution value? And that was the part that I loved about it. Right? That’s where. If you think about the history, you’re talking about a TU and the whole design of what happened back in Tailwind and all of that, um, what it was all about was making sure that we have a solution oriented selling mechanism that is integrated with partner solutions.

And that’s the part that that’s beautiful about it. Microsoft has always been true to that part of it. And if you think about. The strategy of it is very different than, let’s say, I mean, not to, um, you know, say one is better than the other, but like an Oracle model or whatever, where it was a very direct selling motion at Microsoft.

What, what bomber did was, which was cool, I. Was he peeled off a little bit of services margin out of the consulting business and fed it into the ecosystem part of it to help develop ISVs and and integrator partners. We were talking a little bit earlier about, you know, your, your history at Biby and, and you know.

That is what it’s all about, is like if you really are in the ecosystem selling business, which Microsoft is, that’s great. Okay. Prove it and then show us that you, you, you have an alignment to that model in terms of how you do investment and help the businesses grow, and that literally becomes the ecosystem multiplier.

So what

[00:15:12] Vince Menzione: instruction would you have for the partners in the room and those watching us on livestream? How, how to engage with

[00:15:18] Steve Hale: Alistair’s organization? Very self, selfishly, I would say figure out how to use their money.

[00:15:23] Vince Menzione: Okay.

[00:15:24] Steve Hale: Very cool. I mean, to, to be fair, right? Yeah. And, and the reason why I say that is because there, there, if you look at the consumption model that we, that.

We want to drive with Azure, right? You want to try and figure out, like, how do you tap into that part of it to be able to drive those? Um, look, at the end of the day, the way I think about it, when I talk to my sales teams, it’s all about the workloads. It’s about what is driving the customer investment?

Where is the money coming from? Where is the Vander Gold for, I don’t care if it’s a, a huge, you know, Coca-Cola or all the way down to a, a smaller, uh, a smaller company that’s trying to. Innovate. They want to innovate. They need partnerships that are gonna help ’em go drive this. This is stuff that I did with, um, after I left Microsoft.

I was with Bridge Partners here as a consulting firm that’s, that’s, uh, uh, very near and dear to my heart. But, you know, it’s going from a massive company down into, um, a, a consulting organization that’s always thinking about customer value and solutions. So that would be. You, you know, I mean, figure out how to tap into the wealth of Microsoft, but also at the same time be very, very focused on the workloads and the customer solution value.

I mean, how do you get

[00:16:39] Vince Menzione: relevant? Jen, I want to come to you because I know you spent a lot of time with organizations and, and their lack of relevancy, their lack of engagement models, and I know there’s some points you want to share on that as

[00:16:51] Jennifer Weis: well. It, well, it, it. Builds on what you both were saying and and using Microsoft’s money.

And to be blunt, so when you mentioned Biby, I was at BUR for years. Biby was acquired by CDW, then I was at CDW, then I went for startup ISV. But that was exactly it. We would sit down every year, first off being relevant as a partner. No offense, it’s not about the partner’s model and what the partner does.

If you wanna be relevant to Microsoft. You have to do it the Microsoft Way. Mm-hmm. So every year we knew changes were coming. Microsoft is not simple. It’s complicated, but at the end of the day, it’s not. If you just take that ego out of the way and you say, okay, Microsoft’s gonna come out in the June timeframe and they’re gonna come out with their incentives and investments, and that’s how their sales reps are compensated.

So every year I sit down with that plan. And I would go through it and I would say, okay, how am I going to make money? Yeah. Off this plan? And how am am I going to model our win formula to be able to go after you said the solution areas, how am I gonna do that? And I’ll put a plan together. And then I, I think it was Lori Alyssa said, then I go to the executive board and say, okay, I plan to bring in, you know, you gave me a quota of whatever million in profit, right?

This is how I’m gonna make a million in profit, but. I’m gonna need to make these three changes. Do I have your buy-in? And every year they’re like, go for it. And we did it, and I would deliver. And then the next year I’m like, okay, here we go again. But if you go into it with the attitude of it is what it is, yes, you can influence changes for future years, but you’re not gonna change it that year.

Yeah. So you just accept what it is. And then you build a strategy to maximize the heck out of it and earn, I mean, Microsoft, we, we, when we were at Burbank, they were our biggest customer because we used their funding, but we used it and delivered results and delivered results and delivered results. And so we even went to Microsoft many times and said, I think we can do it better, but we’re gonna need investment from you.

You

[00:19:02] Steve Hale: bet.

[00:19:02] Jennifer Weis: Right? And we wanna bring this program and they’d go. Okay. You did it last year, so go ahead, do it again. So that’s how we built a great strong Microsoft practice in consulting. Then we brought it over to CDW and then we brought it to the licensing piece of it, and we just build kind of a program sales, and there’s really three elements to that.

The first element is, uh, someone was mentioning it, the maniacal focus, right? Yeah. The first element is everybody on your team has to know what you’re actually doing. Our goal is to drive x. And this is how we’re gonna do it. We built a win formula. Well, you have to have this marketing funnel. Then from this marketing funnel, you then deliver this and train your sales reps on this.

And you just, you build that whole win formula from your account based marketing to your hero offer. And you go through those pieces of it, and then you just turn around and deliver. But you needed that. You needed the executive buy-in, so you had to have from top down if it’s just alliance driven. And it was mentioned this morning.

It, it doesn’t work.

[00:20:05] Vince Menzione: It doesn’t work.

[00:20:06] Jennifer Weis: And so you, that’s what we did is we, and we did it really quick and really agile and we just repeated that motion and created that flywheel.

[00:20:13] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And that’s what we did. You got the executive commitment within your organization, right? I got the executive

[00:20:17] Jennifer Weis: commitment within the organization.

So we’re doing that with partners now. We worked on a majors motion, 15 partners. We walked in, it’s like half the partners got it and they’re like, yep, we’re gonna adopt it. And they’re. Crushing it just in the last two, you know, two months. Some of the other partners are still trying to decide what solution, and so they’re a little bit farther behind.

So that’s my recommendation. Build a plan, get executive buy-in. Then build your win formula with all the roles aligned and then just go deliver. But you make it easy and you make it simple.

[00:20:51] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And you mentioned all the roles. This is with the Alyssa conversation earlier, right? Engineering go to market, co-selling, your alliance team, your executive team at the executive level to executive

[00:21:01] Steve Hale: level.

Yeah. What, what I, what I loved about what, um, Alyssa said earlier was, uh, you’ve gotta have the technology piece of it. Yeah. Like once you, if you have that, then you’re good to go. And then the co-selling motion, right? Yeah. Which is what. They’re really, that’s gonna be the next question. That’s where we’re gonna roll into.

But I, I loved her point of view on that. And I think it’s like, how do we, how do we connect with the, with the machinery that is happening at Microsoft, it is creates this scale. And how do we do that in a way that’s gonna be profitable for all of us and help our customers? So, Alistair,

[00:21:33] Vince Menzione: thousands of sellers, right?

Mm-hmm. Within the organization. How do I get their attention? Right? I, I’m one of 165,000 partners in the Americas. Lori Borg mentioned earlier. Yes. So how, I mean, that’s an incredible number of partners. Tapping on the door, on your door.

[00:21:48] Alistair Butler: It’s a quest. It’s a question I get a lot and, uh, we still okay on Mike?

You can, yeah. Yeah, we’re good. You’re good, you’re good. Um, so it’s a question I get a lot and, um, it’s easier to answer now that we are specifically a fourth region, if you’re serious about that. Customer segment, you really need to think, um, through firstly making sure your sales organization has some dedication to that customer segment.

Um, you know, just speaking very openly, if my, uh, sellers are engaged with a partner and you know, the first time they’re together and they have an open discussion, okay, so how do you look at us? And they’ve got seven strategic accounts and four. They turn off straight away. Yeah. Right. Because they’re trying to, my sellers are trying to engage really with anything from two to five partners to run their scale business.

Yeah. Okay. So a lot of that’s regionally based. A lot of that, of course, is still into its relationships and connectivity and rhythms that are running in the business. But if you’re serious about wanting to grow with us and SME and C business, really think about segmenting your own sales teams, um, for that.

That’s, that, that’s number one. Um. And I can give a very brief example of we had a, we had A-A-G-S-I, huge player. You would all know them. Um, came to, uh, myself, uh, last summer. Um, we’re making plans for six months away. Um, we’re actually going to double down, um, our Kevin Ster and, and create a, uh, a mid-market segment.

What’s your advice? I showed them my a TU structure, if you align to that. When you’re ready and you can demonstrate the right skill base and understanding of M Em. I’ll make all the introductions. Ah, M em. Yes. The executive team listened to that. They came back three months later and they showed us the plan and they were activated across my sales team within six weeks.

Yeah.

[00:23:51] Vince Menzione: Yeah.

[00:23:52] Alistair Butler: It can be done now. There’s an intention to that and I think maybe just the final piece, um, here, Vince, to your go have an opinion. There is in the segment enough white space for all of us have an opinion on what the solution areas that you have, skills and expertise in sustainable, um, and the industries where you have presence.

It’s a really difficult thing sometimes for a partner, and I’ve been around partners since the mid nineties to actually be declarative. But when you share that opinion and your value proposition. The connection into the sales team is so much faster. It happens at the first meeting versus folks finding out at the third or fourth, and I’ve just wasted, you know, two months of starting to, it’s much, much better to be cleaner and clearer.

Um, all of our growth, um, is in the middle part of our mail even. And, uh, we, Microsoft partner to help us go Microsoft account list, by the way. Absolutely. Now for

[00:24:52] Vince Menzione: those who don’t know it, yep. You mentioned M em, I’d like to double click on SEM a little bit. For those who don’t know M em, we’ve actually had speakers talk about M EM specifically on stage.

Great. It’s a great topic, but I think we should double click and I think with amongst the three of you, you probably have different perspective on here, but I think I’ll, I want to get all three of your perspectives on M EM and how to engage as a partner to drive msem.

[00:25:16] Steve Hale: So at the end of the day, it’s a framework, it’s a methodology to be able to help us be able to, I think, strategically and tactically sell better.

Right? So, I mean, we got all the acronyms in the world. Um, at the end of the day, I think it comes down to how do we have a connected fabric in terms of how we do solution selling together and how we deliver. Um, you know, that value and messaging, I, I was, um. It was funny, I was at a, uh, a dinner and a customer came over.

It was a partner dinner, and the customer came over and they said, and I’m not gonna say who the partners were, but um, the customer came over and said, Hey, are you guys actually working together? Like we were having a conversation with the technology company and, and, and the customer said to us. I love that about you guys.

I love that you’re actually sitting down and talking about technology working together to help us deliver value in my organization. You know, so m sem and, and you’re, you’re the expert on it. It, it’s a framework. It’s a methodology. That’s great. How does it help us? How does, how do we make it real? And how does it deliver customer solution value?

Yeah. In my, my opinion. Double click on me.

[00:26:31] Jennifer Weis: Yeah. Well, well, with M Sem, I was talking earlier about the wind formula.

[00:26:35] Vince Menzione: Yeah.

[00:26:36] Jennifer Weis: The, and, and you mentioned the, the funding programs and different things. Yeah. So within M Sem, there are the five stages. But within each stage there’s specific guidance given to the sellers on this is the ha halo conversation you have, this is the hero offer you pitch, and the hero offer usually comes with funding to deliver something.

So, and there’s even, I think

[00:26:58] Vince Menzione: we actually have a slide that might help us along here actually. So let’s go. There’s

[00:27:01] Jennifer Weis: even campaigns in a box.

[00:27:03] Vince Menzione: Yep.

[00:27:04] Jennifer Weis: Right? That you and marketing materials. I was shocked when I started to work with some of the partners, even some of my own, but the partners that weren’t mine, and I would ask, do you know what M SEM is to their sales teams?

And the sales teams are like. No. Yeah. And I’m like, okay. And then I would say, show me your strategy, you know, wind formula for how you’re going to land this. And they’re like, well, here’s our offer. Here’s the technical capabilities. And that’s not a strategy, that’s a, that’s a technical solution. So we would go through the wind formula that you see there.

We would go through and say, well, what are you doing at each stage? But there’s, there’s a link on this slide too. I said, Microsoft has this built already. You just need to go get the material and make it your own. Right. Go get the campaign in a box. Go get the, the, the halo conversations and material. Go get the hero offer.

Just make it your own. And so we help optimize that. They have a strategy and then it’s like, now we just go land this with your sellers. Yeah. And that’s you. You gotta build that formula to be able to land it. And if you follow the Microsoft methodology, then when you go in and talk to. You know your sellers, it’s really easy because you’re talking the same language.

You have the ability to collaborate and sit down at the table together ’cause you’re talking the same thing. And it, it gives the, the partners the ability to, to fast track going to market, but then make it their own. Yeah.

[00:28:28] Vince Menzione: And Alistair, this is very deliberate at Microsoft. When, when, when I was a Microsoft gm, we didn’t have this No.

Everybody followed their own methodology. You have a common language Yes. That you’re, when you, when you’re having reviews, funnel reviews, any business reviews in your business, you’re talking through this right.

[00:28:44] Alistair Butler: Absolutely. So M CAPS is a hundred thousand people organization that is wired to this.

[00:28:49] Vince Menzione: Yeah.

[00:28:50] Alistair Butler: And you know, it’s been around a few years, uh, a few years now, but the commitment to it, and I suspect the longevity will, will continue because it really has given so much more clarity and understanding of our own business. As to how competitive we are, um, uh, what the customer experience is. Dare I even say, what’s the profitability profile for our partners in that?

And yes, we live by this for any operational review. It is so important that your sales teams have an appreciation of this. Yes, they don’t need depth, but they need an appreciation. But you must have at least one person. Or at least a small team, really understanding the programs, how you leverage the dollars, the timings, the announcements to actually filter all of that into your sales team.

That is a, that is a critical point as to doing, doing business with us, really. But yes, for anything that we’re doing on our pipelines and looking at program activations and, and anything that you might imagine on a sales dashboard, um, uh, finds its way back, uh, back to this.

[00:30:00] Vince Menzione: Steve, when your sellers, you’re working with your organization and your sellers, how are you implementing em to help them be successful working with Microsoft?

[00:30:08] Steve Hale: You know, I think at the end of the day, what, when, when we talk about leveraging our, our partnership and our center of gravity with a partnership like Microsoft, at the end of the day, like what, you know, and I’m not trying to get into like product specific stuff, but. It. What we’re, what we want to do is make sure that our delivery of what we’re trying to focus on, we, we talked about this earlier, which is be be really clear about what we’re going to do, and also be clear about what we’re not gonna do.

Yeah, because otherwise we can just be random and we can, you know, say we’re gonna do all these things, but, but, and we’re trying to conquer the world. And that’s why Microsoft did the segmentation in the first place, right? That’s right. And that’s where, that’s right. Trying to get very focused. So if you think about, I mean the orig, the original a TU piece, they used to call it the atomic, uh, unit.

And so it became the account team unit, all of that stuff. And now it’s being implemented and they’re doing it for a reason. And, and, and ER’s point is like. Are we gonna focus on mid-market customers or, you know, be dedicated to that. Be clear about what you’re gonna do and be really clear about what you’re not gonna do and prioritize.

[00:31:19] Alistair Butler: There’s, um, there’s a, um, little piece here to add as well, particularly for the partner community, for the segment that I’m part of. Yes. Um, different to our strategics who have. Um, the CSUs in stages four and five. You’ll see ladies and gentlemen, realize value and manage and optimize. We have a lot of Microsoft people around, around those, those don’t exist in our, that’s right segment in SM, E and C, we are fully committed to that being partner.

A partner delivered. Uh, and lifecycle delivered with your services. Right. So where we coach our sales teams much more in recent years is the connectivity into the partner base such that we are getting actually an understanding of your services. I. And when we’re together in the customer, um, that’s a really positive thing.

Yeah. And, um, many, many changes have happened in a very short period of time, uh, that we’re really positive about lots of energy going into it. And, uh, even in our CSP program that plays very, uh, cloud solution partner program that plays very prevalently here. Um, good, uh, profitability and margin for our partners in that aspect.

[00:32:32] Vince Menzione: That comes back to the IDC study that we talked about yesterday. And was it $8.65 of services revenue for partners for every dollar of Microsoft. Yes. Commitment. And I think the point you’re making too is there’s, you don’t have this massive consulting services organization. You really need the partners in the room here to drive that.

[00:32:51] Alistair Butler: We do. And there was even an organizational announcement where. Um, folks in our global, um, solution partner teams even joined us. So we’re now one organization. Yes. Obviously that cements the, uh, commitment to

[00:33:03] Vince Menzione: that part of our strategy. That’s right. So Nicole’s organization absolutely is part of you, same organization that you sit in now.

So it’s really intertwined the partners into the business. Anything else we should add? Yeah,

[00:33:14] Jennifer Weis: well I was just gonna add, and I talked about it yesterday in the breakout session, if you attended, is the other thing that I’m doing with partners that is coaching them on how to do account planning. Yeah. And you, we were helping them to understand that Microsoft and the enterprise builds these four segments in their account plan, but in the SM.

E and C, it just doesn’t roll off the tongue.

[00:33:35] Vince Menzione: That’s why they’re using smack. That sounds

[00:33:38] Jennifer Weis: terrible. Uh, you build a territory plan and you mentioned another partner that came to you guys and said, we are, we’re gonna invest in this. So my recommendation to a partner is, if you wanna get serious in this space, go figure out what solution you’re gonna go sell.

Build your win formula set how many goals you’re gonna do. And then build a territory plan, you know, so that you can come to the teams and say, I’m going after this market or this industry. I have a target list of a hundred accounts. My goal is to close 20 deals. And this is how I am su structuring, accountability and ownership within me, my partner organization.

And we’ll align with you on the, the first, the blue stages on there. And then once we’re done with that, then we go deliver the. Purple stages because there’s no CSU. Yeah. So it’s, it’s not complicated. It’s complicated to learn how to put it together, but once you know how to put these things together, it’s

[00:34:34] Alistair Butler: not complicated.

And then my, my best sellers working with their three to five partners on their territory plans are doing exactly what, yeah, Steve was suggesting where there’s clear delineation on who’s on first, who’s on second. Within that, under a common. Under a common language, it’s, it is designed well. It is designed simply.

Um, and the partners where we do it the best with, we just fly. I love

[00:35:02] Steve Hale: it. I love it. Yeah. The, the, the, the cool thing about Microsoft is that they will get super, super complex about everything, but then they generally will boil it back up into something that’s executable. And that’s what I love about it. I mean, they wrote the book on co-sell.

They did. And so like Howie. You talk about M and all the acronyms and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all that kind of stuff. But at the end of the day, they really know what they’re doing. And if you tap into that method and go along with the acronyms and figure out how the machinery works, it’s a great ecosystem be to be a part of it really is.

[00:35:35] Vince Menzione: Well, we are up on time. We promised everybody a break. Um, hopefully you’ll all be around if for networking for a little while. I know Jen was leading a session yesterday. There’s a lot of great knowledge in the room here on how to engage with Microsoft. How be more successful driving your business. And if you haven’t, we haven’t.

We actually have a double click on M Sem. As a video that’s in our ultimate partner. If you got Ultimate Partner website on YouTube or even the ultimate partner.com and go through our sift through our search on sem, you’re gonna find some in great, some great instruction on what SEM is and how to engage with sem.

So, and I know we could, we could spend hours on SEM here and we have some great experts who can take you through this. So I want to thank each of you got great conversation today for our partners. This is, this is how you need to engage this. This is where the acre of diamonds is for each of you. So I want to thank you all for being part of this conversation.

Thank you. You, you. Thank you.

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Is your business ready for 2026?

Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Podcast.

This was a fan favorite as I was joined by former Microsoft executive and current Elastic leader, Alyssa Fitzpatrick, as she reveals the strategies behind achieving pinnacle success as a Microsoft partner. Learn how Elastic consistently earns “Partner of the Year” awards by prioritizing technology innovation, fostering deep engineering alignment, and ensuring maniacal focus across all functional teams. Alyssa shares invaluable insights on gaining executive buy-in, establishing clear communication “swim lanes,” and leveraging data to drive impactful decisions. Discover the importance of consistent engagement, human relationships in partnering, and why adaptability is the new IQ in today’s rapidly changing market.

Key Takeaways:

If you’re ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership, this is your community.

At Ultimate Partner®, we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins.

Key Tags:

.Microsoft partner, Elastic, ultimate partner, partner of the year, cloud go-to-market, alliance strategy, executive commitment, technology innovation, engineering alignment, co-selling, go-to-market, influence strategy, partner resources, adaptability, data-driven decisions, human relationships, BRS, QBR, EBC, channel leadership.

Transcription:

[00:00:00] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: Adaptability is that has become really the most important thing that any leader needs to do in this, this world that we’re in. Um, it’s no longer one, two year roadmaps. It’s three months.

[00:00:16] Vince Menzione: We believe this time is like no other. We believe we refer to these as the tectonic shifts,

[00:00:22] Intro: all the hyperscalers in the world, if you add them all together.

Managed services will be one and a half times larger

[00:00:28] Vince Menzione: because it is the customer buying behavior that has created the need for all of us to rethink our models.

[00:00:34] Intro: Until we have data quality, the effectiveness of AI cannot be realized and effectiveness of the partnerships cannot be realized. Can you figure out, first, what your purpose is and how Microsoft can support your purpose and how you can support Microsoft purpose?

Now we have a partnership. It’s the ultimate partnership.

[00:00:54] Vince Menzione: Welcome to The Ultimate Guide to Partnering. I’m Vince Menzi, own your host, and my mission is to help leaders like you achieve your greatest results through successful partnering. We just came off Ultimate Partner Live at Microsoft Redmond Campus.

Our most powerful event yet. Over two days, we gathered top leaders to tackle the real shifts shaping our industry. If you weren’t in the room, this fireside chat with Eissa Fitzpatrick, the partner leader for Elastic, an award-winning partner, brings us right to the edge of what’s next. Let’s dive in. So we always talk about like the pinnacle of success, like how do you get to be the top Microsoft partner?

And that’s one that we aspire to is where we came up with the term ultimate partner. ’cause an ultimate partner is a partner that she’s their greatest results. They understand how to be part of that 0.001 point. Percent, you’re not in that 99, 9 per percent. And I saw that quite a bit when I was at Microsoft.

I got to see the one per the 1% that knew how to, how to operate in a, in a, in a congruent way. They knew, knew how to apply all these principles in order to be successful. So we wanted to have, as our next guest, an organization and a leader that’s been driving that. In fact, this is also somebody who’s former Microsoft who’s gonna be joining us and having a conversation about.

How do you get to be partner of the year? How do you get to the pinnacle of success as an organization? And so I’m thrilled to invite, and I think she’s in the back ready, uh, Alyssa Fitzpatrick, I don’t know if anyone knows Alyssa. Alyssa was at Microsoft for many years. She was in the global partner organization.

Uh, she’s now running Elastic, which if, if you, if you haven’t been keeping up, like who are the top partners, especially in the marketplace world, elastic is at the very pinnacle of success across the entire ecosystem. Of partners and cloud go to market. And so I’m so thrilled to have her spend some time with us talking about how do you get to that level?

How do you become the most successful partner out there? How do you become a pinnacle partner? And so Alyssa, so great to see you, my friend. That’s great to meet. Thank you. Great to see you. Thank you. Great to see you. We were comparing scars the other day. Yes. I had, um, we both had accidents within the last month or two, right?

Yes. Yes. Your, yours is much better. You look much better. Mine. Mine was a little bit easier

[00:03:13] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: than the getting hit by a car. I, uh, I did it all to myself. Um. When you have low blood pressure, there is a you swoon sometimes, and if you don’t get yourself to a place where you’re stable, you can fall over and the heaviest part of your body is your head.

So I broke my fall. Right there. So it was three weeks ago. I’m healing pretty well, but I had a couple of black eyes for two weeks, which was really wasn’t Turn the camera on, I’ll tell you that. But um, but yeah, I was,

[00:03:43] Vince Menzione: I wasn’t turning the camera on either, so. Well, it so great to see you. Thank you, dad. So great to have you.

Yeah, we’re in, we, we brought the event up to you.

[00:03:50] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: Yes, you did. We did. I love it. Yeah. Yep.

[00:03:53] Vince Menzione: And I wanna sit, I wanna sit down with you and have some conversation’s today. Let do, let’s do, uh, it’s so great to have you. I mentioned the fact that you spent many years at Microsoft. That’s how we first met you were at Microsoft.

[00:04:03] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: Yep.

[00:04:03] Vince Menzione: I knew. I knew even back in that day. You were in the sailing. You were a big sailor. Yeah,

[00:04:07] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: I did. But you didn’t grow up in

[00:04:08] Vince Menzione: the Pacific Northwest. No. Yeah. So tell us more about your background. I grew up in

[00:04:11] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: Colorado, actually in Boulder, Colorado. Nice. Beautiful town

[00:04:14] Vince Menzione: and, uh,

[00:04:16] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: kind of, it was a small town in the seventies.

Very, very small town, very different. Um, but I did come to University of Washington for school, but I quickly left because I was only up here for the school year, never spent a summer. Oh, and if any of you have ever experienced a summer in Seattle, that’s why, you know, we live here and I didn’t until 30 years later.

When I came back to work for Microsoft and I was like, how did I not know this? I got to work in all these other places. I lived in San Francisco, I lived in London, I lived in New York. Um, finally came back here and, uh, it, it’s outstanding.

[00:04:54] Vince Menzione: Summers are beautiful here. Yes, absolutely gorgeous.

[00:04:56] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: It is, it’s amazing.

And I, yes, I love boating and I’ve taken my passion for sailing, which I’ve been sailing for about 35 years, and I’ve transitioned that into cruisers. Um, there’s a lot that you can accomplish up here and up into Canada and just, it’s the most beautiful boating place in the world. So I love it.

[00:05:16] Vince Menzione: I love it.

And you know, we had Lori Borg gun just before you. Mm-hmm. Spent 26 years in the Microsoft ecosystem at a partner. You, I know you’ve had several. Points before you got to Microsoft, but you went from being a Microsoft executive. I want you to talk about what you did at Microsoft and then you went back, you went back out now and leading a top award-winning partner.

So take us through a little bit of that. Yeah,

[00:05:36] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: it’s, it’s actually been a lot of fun. Yeah. Um, and, and I will, you know, kind of caveat it, that you don’t have to come from Microsoft to have a successful partnership. Um, because it was already happening before I got there. It was, it was already in line. And so, um, I can’t take credit.

For the, the Partner of the Year awards because I joined Elastic a year ago. And, um, and that motion was already happening and, and what the, what I see is, um. A company that made commitments and followed through on them and was very, very focused in, uh, making the partnership itself work. And so it doesn’t mean that because I’ve got a background at Microsoft that that was the recipe.

Um, it really is understanding all of the programs and the opportunities that your partner provides, and then tapping into that, um, being on the Microsoft side, it, I got to see. Who are the partners that were tapping into our programs and how are they working for them? And taking the feedback of, well, this is gonna work if we do it this way.

We need to drop the threshold here, or we need to do that. And I learned a lot about how my partners. Worked, transacted, engaged, marketed cosal, and, and that really gave me a different perspective because when I came into Elastic, I, I understood the ecosystem in a way that I, I hadn’t before Microsoft. And so it.

Really made it clear how do we go to market as elastic together with our ecosystem because our technology powers, um, all the ISVs out there as well. So we’re, we’re all, we wanna partner with everybody. Um, and so when I look at what I learned at Microsoft and the power of the engines that they build, that we can tap into the partners that do.

Are the partners that win. And so that, that really is it. It’s as simple as that. It’s understanding what’s available and then tapping into it. And when it doesn’t work for you, feed it back. Give that feedback so that they can modify because. Coming from Microsoft, I knew I wanted programs that worked for my partners.

Interesting. And if it wasn’t, then I wanted the feedback so I could modify. And that’s really important to not just ride along and go, well, it doesn’t really work, so I’m not tapping into it. Mm-hmm. Figure out how to make something work for you or go and give that feedback so that you could say, Hey, what if we did it this way?

Yeah. Microsoft will listen. Our partners will listen. We all want to win together.

[00:08:10] Vince Menzione: How do you give the feedback in a way that’s both deliberate and diplomatic?

[00:08:15] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: So, um, I’ll take a page from what Lori just said, the. Go to market build with go to market, sell with. It’s, um, it’s probably been the mantra here for almost 10 years now.

Yeah. And, um, if that is not your mantra in the way that you’re running your partnerships, um, with Microsoft, I strongly recommend that you, you adopt that. Um, and it works for everybody else. And so that’s what’s the nice part about it is every partnership that we run at Elastic, we look at what is the build piece.

Where’s the innovation coming from? What’s the solution that we’re trying to build for our customers? The how do we market that? How do we tell the world about what we built together, what we have, and then the sell? How do we empower our sellers to understand how to work together? And so making sure you, you really have that spectrum and, and you’re working that, and then decide what works for you.

Yeah. And, and to bring that feedback in, you’re gonna have, you, you need to have points of contact for each one of those, um, those swim lanes and working with

[00:09:15] Vince Menzione: those functional, functional areas that I like to refer to as Yeah. You’re working with

[00:09:17] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: Microsoft. Yeah. And that’s where you give the feedback.

[00:09:19] Vince Menzione: Yep.

[00:09:20] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: If it’s a build, you give it to the build team. If it’s go to market, let’s take the marketing team and show them what we need to do. So it’s really important that you land the feedback in the right place so it can be, um, taken in and then addressed. Um, otherwise it, it tends to float around without, um,

[00:09:36] Vince Menzione: yeah.

You bring up a really great point, but, well, you brought up a couple, several good points I wanna make sure I want to highlight. First of all, you talked about executive commitment and that’s super critical to success. Like if your executive team is not on board and helping to drive the the alliance strategy all up.

You’re gonna lose. Um, but you talked about the, the swim lanes and making sure that you, you’re aligned by role. And one of the things we’ve encouraged organizations to do over the years is not just have one person who’s responsible for the alliance mm-hmm. But to embed leadership from your organization with leadership.

At the Microsoft partner leadership level. So your build team and their build team are aligned. Your go-to market and their go-to market are aligned, your co-selling, their co-sell are aligned, and any other areas, right? There are other functional areas that are gonna align with your business. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Is that how elastic Exactly? Yeah.

[00:10:26] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: And, and it’s very empowering for the teams because the marketing team, they, they, they work incredibly well together and the rest of us are like, oh, what are they doing over there? Alright, that’s great. And then I get in, you know, information from what’s happening on the build.

And you know, we, at every single Microsoft conference or, or any of our partner conferences, we try to release. Um, do press releases on new functionality and that’s coinciding exactly with roadmaps. And so we really wanna make sure that the build team, all they’re thinking about is how do we innovate together and make sure that everything that we’re doing from our roadmap and their roadmap are aligned.

Marketing, empower them to go and find those opportunities and drive it. And then the cell team as well, it having each team have a connection versus one person trying to work the, the entire, um, agenda. It really does empower the team and make it agile, quick and innovative at, at the very, um, source.

[00:11:24] Vince Menzione: And let’s dive in on executive commitment.

’cause all those things are, all those teams are reporting into a C-suite leader. Mm-hmm. Right. Generally the CEO of the organization or or other role, how do you drive that and how do you drive the communication from your level of role within the organization driving partnerships and strategy there? How are you then communicating with that leadership team and how are you sprinkling in the priorities that you need to drive into the business?

[00:11:48] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: You know, I think that’s probably the. Biggest challenge for, um, individuals in the, um, the global channel leader role is getting the buy-in from our executives and getting them to understand the opportunity to the magnitude that, that we see. And they’re very numbers oriented. Yeah. And so it’s a challenge.

It’s a, it’s tough to really go in and get the leadership to understand what the opportunity is, because a lot of times it is. Belief, you know, build it, they will come. Well, we do have proof for that. And there are partnerships out there that you can point to and say, look at somebody our size, our scale, and what they’ve done by doing X, Y, Z.

So I think the best way to sell your story is to look in the industry at peer group successes or even bring in and, and I know this sounds crazy, but bring an analyst in because. Your leadership, hearing it from you is one thing, but when they hear it from someone else, there is a different impact. And I’ve, I’ve recognized that as I’ve been trying within Elastic to, uh, modify and move our focus going to my senior executive team.

By myself is less effective than going to my senior executive team when I bring in outside data or even an outside consultant. Yeah. To really prove the story. And it doesn’t mean that there’s not credibility with me. It’s, there’s so many ways to do partnering. That is your way, the best way. And so trying to find that right recipe for your company, it is important to do the research.

Do your homework, make sure you’ve got a financially driven plan, that you have, a metric that your leadership can say, okay, I believe in that metric when it goes up or down. That’s what I’m gonna hold you to. That is really important. Otherwise, you’re asking your leadership to, um, you know, really believe in something that may or may not happen.

You’ve gotta prove the story.

[00:13:52] Vince Menzione: So what’s the secret sauce? What, I mean, you, you’ve given a lot of it, but Right. But partner, the year status, multiple years. Right? This is, uh, you’ve, you’ve just been awarded again, some of the other cloud, uh mm-hmm. Hyperscalers as well. What is the secret sauce within Alaska?

Elastic that helps you become partner of the year? Like what, what do you think it is?

[00:14:12] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: Well, I actually think, um. Lori nailed it with technical intensity and I do remember when, you know, when Satya said that is the most important thing for Microsoft and our partner ecosystem. What I’ve seen, the way that Elastic engages with our partners is technology first, and that is something that’s different.

I’ve been in. Partnering for 35 years, and the early days of partnering was all about co-selling, and it was all about how do we line up our sellers? How do we engage ’em, spiff ’em, do whatever we can do to have a meet in the market. Well, that doesn’t work anymore if you don’t have the technology.

Innovation. And so it really does come down to leading with your technology first and embedding your tech in, uh, Microsoft or vice versa, somehow making it hook in and understanding what are the release cycles, where, what is the next innovation and. Until you get deep in, you may not hear what those roadmaps are.

And so you’ve gotta build those relationships so that you can become part of the fabric that is doing the innovation. And then you’re actually. Driving Microsofting. So what I’m seeing now is the way that Elastic and Microsoft work is we have these innovation sessions regularly where we look at our technology and we, we compare roadmaps.

Yeah. And as we do that, we’re affecting each other’s maps. Um, we ask for functionality in, um, the marketplace. It took a few months, but we pushed and pushed and pushed, and it’s something that we really needed so that we could do multi-year transactions with our partners. Um, they responded and we worked together and, and we made it happen.

And so I think the secret is, I. Lead with your technology and make sure that it is something that can really work and hunt with the partnerships that you’re trying to build and then wrap the relationship around that, that’s where you start. Um, and I do think that that is the secret sauce that has made Elastic very successful, is we are fearless in going into the engineering organizations and, and really asking for more.

Um. I love it. I come from an open source background, um, at, at Elastic, and it is fearless. It’s like, Hey, let’s build here. Let’s do that. Let’s do this. And it is, um, so it’s a very, it’s fascinating, um, exciting time to watch this happen, but when you think about the partner world. It has changed so much, and yes, co-selling is very important, but if you don’t have the nucleus of technology and innovation together, it, it doesn’t matter what you’re selling out there.

[00:16:53] Vince Menzione: So I’m hearing tech intensity, I’m hearing engineering. I’m, I’m seeing, I’m visualizing your engineers in the room with the Microsoft engineers in the room, having very, very deep conversations about product alignment. Mm-hmm.

[00:17:05] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: And fit.

[00:17:06] Vince Menzione: Mm-hmm. And, and re-engineering the technologies on both sides.

[00:17:09] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: And I think that to get to that point, to be in the room is, it’s important to, to push, to have the conversations, but then do what you say you’re gonna do.

Deliver on time, deliver those features and that functionality that you both agree to. And that’s what really proofs it out.

[00:17:29] Vince Menzione: You’re speaking my language. I talk about this all the time. Like I would sit in those rooms with the PowerPoint slides. We’d have great meetings, we’d have great alignment. We’d, we’d set goals with one another.

We we’re all high fiving each other at the end of the meeting saying, we’re gonna achieve incredible success this year. And then crickets. Yes. We never hear back from them. And it comes back to that maniacal focus. People miss the maniacal focus part of this. Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. And it sounds like you’re doing all that, right?

Your engineering teams are maniacally focused, working with Microsoft. You’re driving the go-to market strategy. You’re driving the co-sell strategy across the organization. Yep.

[00:18:03] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: Yep. It.

[00:18:03] Vince Menzione: It’s quite a bit. What would you say from a, like a resourcing perspective, how do organizations need to think about their resourcing for a successful partnership like yours?

[00:18:12] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: You know, that’s a, that’s a really interesting question because that is probably the biggest challenge that we, we all face every day is, that’s right. Our, our teams are never big enough. Um. When I came into Elastic, I, I was astounded because the partner organization, um, is of size. Um, but for the size of company that we are, it’s, it’s, it’s pretty lean.

But the hyperscaler element of our partner organization is about 15% of the org all up. And so there was a clear decision made, and this is before I showed up, that the hyperscaler relationships were king. They were the top, top dogs. We’re going to make sure we get that right. And so that actually for three years, it was that maniacal focus, which did make other partnerships suffer, right?

Because we just didn’t have the resources. But that was a choice, and those are the choices that you have to make. Sometimes you can’t do it all. And right now I’m making trade-offs where I’m like, this year. I’m not gonna be able to do that because I’ve gotta get this right and this is going to stay healthy and this is gonna stay strong.

And so it is trade-offs. But I would say that if you want to go. Part of the hoop and you really wanna make Microsoft or a hyperscaler relationship work or any partnership, it is focus and intensity around that and putting the resources where your focus is. And that should align all the way up to the the board.

Because if they are, let’s make this work and you move your resources and say, look, another part of the partner organization may suffer as a result. That’s understood. Yes, as long as you communicate and you’re clear with that. But I would say that resourcing, um, making sure that you’ve got, you know, the right leadership that’s connecting at the leader level and running those BRS and QBR and making sure that you constantly have, um, you know, an EBC every six months that keeps the executives together and has that rhythm of the business.

That’s really important. So you’ve gotta have that executive leadership and that alignment. But then you’ve gotta have folks in the field that are helping your sellers really work the deals. Um, it’s not easy. I mean, it’s not just hit a button and get it done. And so we, we do have to help our sellers get it across the line and drive a marketplace first mentality.

In our company. And so it, it is, um, resourcing I think is, is critical to make sure you got the top and the field resources. We have a whole team on marketing and we wouldn’t, we wouldn’t be where we’re at right now without the, um, the incredible focus from marketing and engineering.

[00:20:53] Vince Menzione: And I think I heard you say getting your executives aligned at the top.

By the way, the upstairs of this building is the EBC, it’s the executive briefing center for Microsoft. I’m sure you use this quite a bit for some of those meetings. What do you find is like the secret sauce or the sweet spot getting the, your executives in, the Microsoft executives at that level aligned?

Is there some level of engagement? Executive sponsorship. How do you, how do you do some of those things? Well,

[00:21:18] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: so you do need to have executive sponsorship. That’s important. Um, and then you choose where that comes from. Does that come from the partner team? Does that come from engineering? Does that come from marketing?

’cause that sponsorship can come from different parts of the organization and, um, and that, that’s important ’cause that really does kind of give you that north star of what you’re doing. But then, um, in order to make those, those. Consistent meetings, those qbr, those brs successful, you do need commitment from your leadership.

And so when we have an EBC or even A QBR, my. My CEO will fly up. My CRO will fly up. We bring everyone here to show the commitment, and we do that twice a year. So Microsoft knows we’re gonna come in. Yeah, we spend an entire day together and, um, there is an entire, um, afternoon of engineering and then they say.

Been off and the engineers go in another room and I don’t even know what they talk about. But, um, but we do bring everyone together and it creates the relationship, it creates the consistency and the understanding. ’cause when your CRO hears directly from the top brass at Microsoft about what they’re doing Yeah.

He’s motivated. Yeah. And so it is important to not just have ’em dial in on Zoom or teams or whatever, get ’em here. Get them in the room. That’s when it really, the magic does happen. It is human relationships that we do that partnering. I, I’ve been 35 years in partnering and, and my kids ask me what I do and I say, I built human relationships.

Yeah. Um, where they weren’t before. And, and then we create business out of that. That’s what it is. But it starts with the human relationships first. And, and so get your leaders here. It makes a difference. It really does. And

[00:22:59] Vince Menzione: demonstrating that your leaders are willing to make the commitment to come here.

Mm-hmm. And engage with the other executives in the room is critical. Yep. It also takes a lot of the pressure off of you as a leader of the partnership organization to not have to have the, be the intermediary to the conversation about like, we’re not driving the right results on co-selling with our C-R-C-R-O.

To have the CRO kind of put in the hot seat in a way. Yep. Right. Yep. It’s okay. It’s okay to have that conversation with the other aligned executives on the other side of that. Mm-hmm. And I think that’s part of your secret sauce.

[00:23:31] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: Mm-hmm. Yeah. As as long as everyone’s in the know as well, when you hit those roadblocks, which you will hit, having your leadership understand what’s happening in the relationship not only helps you get over those roadblock, it helps.

You not get as much and you know, you don’t get on fire as much. Right. You’re not gonna get shot at because now you know, like your leader knows Okay, they can’t transact that way. We have to do it this way. Yeah. And so you’re not in the middle going, wait, wait, wait, let me explain all this stuff to you.

They’re in the know. And that’s so helpful to, you know, the, the velocity of the business.

[00:24:08] Vince Menzione: So we talk about embracing change. We talk about adaptability. We’ve used the term adaptability quotient, in fact. Mm-hmm. Like that’s, that’s the new iq. And EQ is the aq. Right. It’s, it’s something you really need to lean in on.

Right? Yeah. How are you leaning in now? You, you’re sitting here as a. And you work with the others as well, but you’re sitting here with Microsoft being a very significant part of your business, knowing that in a couple of months as things are gonna change, right? We’re at the end of 25. Moving into 26, what are you doing from an adaptability perspective within your own organization and how are you also, uh, how are you in tuned with Microsoft on some of this now so that you are able to get the feedback loop going in a way that you’re thinking about your planning and process.

Mm-hmm.

[00:24:51] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: Um. Adaptability is that has become really the most important thing that any leader needs to do in this, this world that we’re in. Um, it’s no longer one, two year roadmaps. It’s three months and the fourth month something could pop that you didn’t know about. And, and, and. It could derail your strategy.

So you, you, you’re constantly adapting. You’re constantly watching. You have to do your homework more than you’ve ever had to do your homework because your homework changes every day. And so, um, being adaptable to what’s happening in the market, but also looking at your performance, looking at how is your relationship actually working and starting to be your own data science scientist and figure out, well, when this happens.

And these two things come together, that’s a great opportunity. Or really start analyzing how does the business happen? Where is it good? Where is it suffering? Where can I actually close some of those gaps? And, and looking across the business. At a, a regular cycle. So you’re seeing, um, we used to, we, we called it a correction of error.

I don’t know if they still do at Microsoft, but whenever there was something that was kind of going off the rails, we would have a COE, a correction of error. And it was kind of like whack-a-mole. Like whenever something came up, we were like, oh, everyone would jump on it, fix that problem. Something else would pop up over here.

That’s the same thing that happens in our world, but we’ve got to be agile in looking at not only knowing those are coming, but predicting them and looking at our business and saying, okay, I’ve seen this, this play out before and I think we’re heading into this kind of, um, gully or whatever it is, moving the boat, getting back on track.

And so I do think it is really important as leaders of our organization to know our data, to know what’s happening and really. Wallow in it and, and watch, because the market is changing so quickly, our data is going to tell us a lot of the things that we may are pontificate about and try to give excuses or reasons.

Yeah. Focusing in the data is going to help you make Dr. Data driven decisions, but also give you the confidence and the credibility. As to why you did that. And so I really think agility does come from, um, being able to adapt to changes in the market, but doing it in a smart way, in a way that you can defend and explain to your leadership.

[00:27:24] Vince Menzione: So that’s your advice for the partners in the room is what I’m gathering, right? It’s that you really need to pay attention to your data. Your data will tell you where you need to go as an organization.

[00:27:33] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: I, I, you know, you can get data to tell any story, like everybody knows that. But reading your data and looking at trends and using what you know, you’re in these roles for a reason, using what you know to make those decisions and powering it with what you’re seeing in front of you and how the, the business is actually transacting and actually, um, you know, moving through the cycles.

[00:27:57] Vince Menzione: I wanna spend a moment on influence strategy though. Okay. We really, we’ve talked about a lot and I think we’ve covered a lot, and I hope people are getting a lot of great nuggets here today about aligning your business, getting your executive team involved, getting everybody in the right room. Mm-hmm.

Doing it on a regular basis. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. How do you think about your influence strategy, like as the leader coming into the organization? Like you said, all about a year enrolled. Mm-hmm. You can’t take all the credit, but you’ve been driving obviously more success on partner of the year award. Um, what is your influence strategy?

How do you think about your influence strategy with the. Both your leadership team as well as the Microsoft Leadership team.

[00:28:33] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: So, um, I, I do actually think about that quite a lot because, um, I came into role a year ago and we were, you know, it always feels like it’s in a state of emergency. Um, I came in, there were nine different organizations all rolling into different leaders that there had been no one in the channel, um, chief.

Uh, had had a channel, no one had been in this role for two and a half, three years. Wow. So it was a little bit, you know, wild out there. Yeah. Um, I had 42 different compensation plans across a team of under 142 comp.

[00:29:07] Vince Menzione: You sound like Microsoft with 42 compensation plans. And

[00:29:09] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: I’m like, what are these people doing?

What? Everyone’s doing something different. Right. So. I had to really bring things together so I had an influence story, so I had a place to start because I really wanted to go to my leadership and say. We’ve gotta bring this together. We’ve gotta be a cohesive team. We’ve gotta have a culture of our own and, and something that we’re striving for.

Everyone has a different goal. We need a North star for our organization. Yeah. And so my influence journey started with. I gotta get a number that matters. Yeah. Like what’s gonna matter to my leadership and what’s gonna matter today. That number that I landed on, which was, uh, you know, a specific revenue target, um, will change.

And it’s a specific revenue target. ’cause it’s not all of revenue. It’s a kind of revenue that I’m, I’m saying this is most important, this is what we’re gonna go after and I’m gonna fix this. Next year might be a different one, but right now I’m laser focused on showing. Progress and showing improvement and bringing the organization together and everyone rowing the same direction.

Um, I’m down to six compensation plans guys, so

[00:30:20] Vince Menzione: Very cool.

[00:30:21] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: Yes, I know. Thank you. That was a lot of, it took a year to get us kind of organized, but now the teams. Understand what they do, and they can cross pollinate, they can work across the regions and actually share best practices. And so my influence strategy started there, which is let’s create a unified structure and then I can start to prove what we’re capable of.

Yeah. The part that. Tends to get lost is you need an influence strategy across the entire organization. Because partnering is building a company inside of a company. It is, it truly is. When I love that, when I, when I talk to my CEOI say, we have sellers. And what we do with our own sellers is we compensate them to do the things we want them to do.

We give them marketing so they can get demand gen. We give them compliance, we give them, uh, Salesforce, we give them a portal to work in, um, you know, uh. All the things that they need. So we have to do the same thing for our partners, but we don’t get to pay them. To do what we want them to do. So we have to create an incredibly attractive partner program and value for our partners to wanna work with us, and it has to be compliant.

They need a portal. They need sales and marketing. They need demand gen. They need everything that we’re offering our entire internal organization. We need that for partner. And don’t let me forget engineering, right? We’ve gotta have engineering as well because our partners push us to do better. And so it is like building a company inside of a company.

So your influence strategy cannot stop with sales and it cannot stop with the CMO and the chief product officer. You’ve gotta get into the services team, you’ve gotta get into legal, you’ve gotta get into the IT department because if you don’t have it working for you, your stuff’s gonna be at the.

Bottom of the list, right? So your influence has to go all the way across the organization. I love this. I love this. It’s exhausting too.

[00:32:20] Vince Menzione: Well, and we could, I mean, I’d like, I’d love to, I know we’re short on time, but, uh, you, I think what you said too is you develop a strong point of view as well. Like you came in and you had to go solve for some real.

Nagging issues mm-hmm. Within the organization. And then you develop a strong point of view that you bring into those other organizations. Yep. Because you’re the one beating the drum every day. Yes, yes. Yeah. So you, you gotta come at it with a very consistent theme.

[00:32:46] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: And I think the consistency is critical because I, um.

I, I’ll, I’ll give you a fail fast. Um, it wasn’t as fast as I’d like it to have been, but uh, when I came in we had a bunch of metrics that we would put up and say, okay, these are our partner numbers. And I started watching my sales team and, you know, they kind of just started tuning out and I’m like, what is going on?

Like. What, what’s wrong with my data? Why? Why don’t they like this? And I got closer and closer where I was like, okay, and here is the source revenue. Here’s the deals brought by partners. Here’s the deals we’re co-selling. Here’s the deals that are going into marketplace. And they started to finally clue in and they’re like, well, that number’s not right, or That doesn’t work for me.

And I finally got them to wake up and I was reporting partner data. That my partner team deemed important, but my selling team didn’t care at all. Hmm. So make sure your data, your whatever you’re reporting against, lines up to the way that sales reports theirs, because if you’re looking at different slices, you’re gonna lose the audience.

I love it. So

[00:33:57] Vince Menzione: many great nuggets. It’s really important. So many great nuggets because I did lose the audience, but I got ’em

[00:34:01] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: back. But

[00:34:02] Vince Menzione: yeah, that was a, that was a surprise for me. But the course correction is important. I know we’re running up on time now, but I think just to the point there is you come into these organizations, the team is already set up line a different way that what they’re reporting is not relevant.

And you have, that’s where you have to come in with that very strong point of view. Yep. And go fix it. Yeah.

[00:34:20] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: And ask yourself, is this right? Yep. I didn’t do that until it, it was too late. Not late, but it obviously has worked. E so

[00:34:28] Vince Menzione: well, I want to thank you. Yeah. This has been a really great tutorial, I think a great instructional, um, we’re gonna, we’re gonna play this again.

It’ll probably be on the podcast because I think most of us as leaders in organizations, we miss this. We miss all. How do you get to that pinnacle? Mm-hmm. And there’s so many things you need to do in an organization to drive this level of success that an elastic will drive. Mm-hmm. Within a Microsoft or within the hyperscale community.

Yep. So, so thrilled to have you join us. Thank you. Today. You, this was wonderful. Thank, I really enjoyed it. Thank you. So

[00:34:56] Alyssa Fitzpatrick: it’s my favorite talk topic to talk about. I love

[00:34:57] Vince Menzione: it. I’ll you back again. Thank you all. All right. Well, thank you Alyssa. That was fantastic. Thank you. What a great conversation. Thank you for joining us this morning.

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Is your business ready for 2026?

Welcome back to the Ultimate Guide to Partnering® Podcast.

Join us for an insightful conversation with Lori Borg, Vice President of Microsoft America’s Go-to-Market, as she shares her incredible journey from Microsoft partner to a key executive at Microsoft. Dive deep into the critical importance of organizational and technical agility in today’s rapidly changing tech landscape, especially within the Microsoft ecosystem. Lori emphasizes the need for technical intensity, urging partners to not only adopt the latest Microsoft technologies, including agentic AI, but also to apply them internally to drive innovation and efficiency. Discover the magic that happens when you strategically build with, sell with, and market with Microsoft, and gain valuable insights on how to foster a culture of growth and adaptability within your own organization to become the ultimate Microsoft partner.

We’re curating the very best of these moments—fireside chats, expert panels, and executive insights—so you can stay ahead of the curve and fully aligned to where Microsoft and the industry are heading.

And this is just the beginning.
More sessions. More voices. More of what you need to know.

If you’re not yet part of the UPX Community, now’s the time to join us. Access exclusive content, events, and strategies that keep you in front of what’s next.

Thanks for being on this journey with us.
— Vince

Key Takeaways

If you’re ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community.

At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins.

Key Tags:

Microsoft, Lori Borg, Microsoft Partner, Go-to-Market, Technical Agility, Organizational Agility, AI, Agentic AI, Ecosystem, Partnerships, Growth Mindset, Digital Transformation, Business Strategy, Innovation, Technology, Microsoft Americas, Channel Partners, Sales, Marketing, Engineering, Customer Success, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Cloud, Satya Nadella, Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Change Management, Business Growth, Co-selling, Solution Areas, Digital Marketing, Cloud Computing, Microsoft Programs, Partner Hub, Future of Work, Tech Trends.

Transcription:

Lori Borg 

[00:00:00] Lori Borg: I think we talk so much about ai. We talk so much about how it’s changing everything and the opportunity in front of us, but we really need to hold the mirror up. Yeah, I do as well. And go, what am I doing to make sure I’m using it for myself? Yes. And I’m encouraging and supporting my teams to be using it as well.

[00:00:21] Intro: We believe this time is like no other. We believe we refer to these as the tectonic shifts, all the hyperscalers in the world. If you add them all together. Managed services will be one and a half times larger because it is the customer buying behavior that has created the need for all of us to rethink our models.

Until we have data quality, the effectiveness of AI cannot be realized and effectiveness of the partnerships cannot be realized. Can you figure out, first, what your purpose is and how Microsoft can support your purpose and how you can support Microsoft purpose? Now we have a partnership. It’s the ultimate partnership.

[00:00:59] Vince Menzione: Welcome to The Ultimate Guide to Partnering. I’m Vince Menzi, own your host, and my mission is to help leaders like you achieve your greatest results through successful partnering. We just came off Ultimate Partner Live at Microsoft Redmond Campus, our most powerful event. Yet, over two days, we gathered top leaders to tackle the real shifts shaping our industry.

If you weren’t in the room. This episode featuring Lori Borg, Microsoft’s new Vice President for Go to Market, kicks us off for day two and brings us right to the edge of what’s next. Let’s dive in. I have an incredible privilege this morning. Um, we, we wanna have the conversation about embracing change, and I could think of no one better to come on stage with me today than someone who’s been around the Microsoft ecosystem and around the community of partnerships her entire career.

In fact, and we will talk a little bit about it. I want, I wanna save some of the conversation for her. She recently joined Microsoft like a hundred days ago, became a vice president at Microsoft. So she went from being one of you all, like one of us in the, in the ultimate partner world that we live in to now being an exec at Microsoft and shaping a very important part of Microsoft’s business.

You see, if you know anything about how Microsoft is organized, you have the global roles and Nicole’s organization drives it at. The global level. But when you get into the Americas, which is where you all sit, whether you’re in Canada, Latin America, or the United States, there’s an America’s business that’s very deliberate, very focused on driving success.

And within that business, a very, very strong component of that business is go to market. It’s marketing. Because as you know, being around Microsoft, all the engines, all the support, all the investments that make partners successful, that go to market strategy is critically important. So I am thrilled to invite my friend, we’ve known each other for many years around the partner ecosystem.

I can’t wait for her to spend some time with us this morning talking about embracing change. Laurie Borg is the vice president of Microsoft America’s go to market for the. Global partner community. That’s a mouthful. A lot of acronyms out there. Lori, I’d love to have you up on stage. Come on up. Come up.

So good to see you. Good. So good to see you, my friend. So good to meet here. We got to be together. We, we were together just a little, was it a month ago? It seems like a hundred years ago. Of course, before a lot has changed. Before I sit down, I have to

[00:03:24] Lori Borg: say who noticed? The ultimate partner pillows the amazing attention to detail.

I love it.

[00:03:30] Vince Menzione: Thank you.

[00:03:30] Lori Borg: Yes. I’ve got a whole

[00:03:32] Vince Menzione: collection of them in my house, by the way. But, uh, we, we will give you a ch we’ll give you a challenge coin and an ultimate partner pillow if you sign up today. How’s that?

[00:03:40] Lori Borg: Perfect.

[00:03:41] Vince Menzione: And a hat. So, and a hat. Absolutely. You got a hat ab Absolutely. For being here. So thanks for having you.

So great to be here with you. Yeah. So great to be here. Um, and I, I just wanna spend a moment talking about your journey. ’cause it’s been incredible. You’ve had an incredible career in the, in the ecosystem that we know and love.

[00:03:57] Lori Borg: Yes.

[00:03:58] Vince Menzione: And, and now you jumped and you came over to the other side. I did. So I want to, let’s, let’s talk about it.

I did tell, take us through it.

[00:04:03] Lori Borg: I, I, I would love to ask before I jump into it. I’ve been in the Microsoft ecosystem for 26 years, so it’s been a minute. Um, and I have some of my peers on my team now at Microsoft celebrating 15, 20, 25 years at Microsoft. And we do a lot to celebrate them inside of Microsoft.

Amazing. What I’m curious of, is anybody in the room? Have you been in the Mark, Microsoft partner ecosystem? Like 20 plus years. Can you raise your hand? Yes. What about 25 plus years? Keep your hands up. There’s several of you. 30 years, anybody? 30 years. Yeah. A few of you, Jeff. Yeah. Good. Well, I wanna do celebrate all those people.

Absolutely. Yeah. Congratulations. Because we celebrate, we celebrate inside of Microsoft. So, um, thank you for choosing Microsoft and for being so committed to the Microsoft ecosystem. Okay with that, a little bit about my journey. So yeah, let’s

[00:04:52] Vince Menzione: talk about you like, yeah,

[00:04:54] Lori Borg: so my journey, I started in the late nineties actually, with a training company.

Wow. So back in the CPLS Ctech days. Yeah. And that’s how I got into the business. I started in, in sales and sales leadership, but I really had a passion to run a company and to be an i, a entrepreneurial spirit, wanted to build a business. Uh, so when I had my first kiddo, I used that as the opportunity to step back from what I was doing and take that big jump.

Very cool. And start a Microsoft partner company. Where’d that

[00:05:24] Vince Menzione: entrepreneurial edge come from? Was there, was it in your DNA? Was it, I will tell

[00:05:28] Lori Borg: you, my first little business was when I was 12 and I started teaching piano. Okay, nice. Very nice. So it very much was in my DNA. It’s DNA. Yeah. Yeah. It’s DNA, um, which I’m sure a lot of you have that same DNA as well since you’re sitting here and partners.

And tell us about the first company

[00:05:42] Vince Menzione: that you started.

[00:05:43] Lori Borg: Yeah, so, uh, the company was a systems integrator designed to help software development teams improve how they built software. We were actually Microsoft’s first DevOps partner, first gold DevOps partner, so helped shape what that competency looked like back in the day.

Um, and I ran that business for 10 years. It was a great, great. Company loved it and had the opportunity to, all through the

[00:06:07] Vince Menzione: s right. All through the s

[00:06:08] Lori Borg: Yeah. Had the opportunity to sell, uh, the company to another larger firm that was one of Microsoft’s largest Azure partners at the time. And I, uh, was a partner there and stayed on to help build that business and then sell it again to one of Microsoft’s largest global companies.

Yeah. One of

[00:06:28] Vince Menzione: the largest GSIs.

[00:06:29] Lori Borg: Yeah. One of the largest GSIs. Um. So then I, you know, that was a, that took a, that took about 13, 14 years out of my career doing kind of that whole sequence of events. Uh, and then I had the opportunity to join a biz apps partner and help build the Azure business. And um, and that was incredible.

And then now I’m here at Microsoft.

[00:06:49] Vince Menzione: Unbelievable. Yeah.

[00:06:50] Lori Borg: So from small to big and everything in between.

[00:06:52] Vince Menzione: So what did you learn along the journey like that you can share with this audience and. People watching today also on livestream. Yeah. About embracing change, about like how do you think about working with Microsoft as your largest vendor or partner?

[00:07:04] Lori Borg: Yeah.

[00:07:05] Vince Menzione: And then how did you do it? Like what did you have to do?

[00:07:08] Lori Borg: I think a couple of things that come to mind right away for me are around agility. Uh, I talk a lot about the importance of agility from two different lenses. One is organizational agility and the other is technical agility. Um, and it’s fairly self-explanatory, just.

By the words in themselves. But when we think about the combination of making sure that your organization is organizationally agile, that you are structured in a way where you can pivot when you need to pivot. Mm-hmm. When you’re tied to a Microsoft funding program and the funding dries up and you need to quick go do something different.

Yes. Or Microsoft rolls out a new solution area or new competency requirements and you need to be able to pivot. So. Structuring the business in a way that you have that culture where you are organizationally agile is key. The other side of that coin though, is having that technical agility. Interesting.

Um, I think it sometimes is easy for us to sit back and not stay on top of that technical intensity that we all need to make sure that we’re. Always learning. We’re in the business of technology.

[00:08:12] Intro: Yeah.

[00:08:13] Lori Borg: Um, and so making sure that you’re creating a culture of technical agility as well as that organizational agility, I think is, is really critical for Microsoft partners to stay front and center and to stay kind of leading edge with all of the change.

[00:08:27] Vince Menzione: How do you think about agility when you’re in the boardroom, when you’re running an organization like that, what do you do to stay agile? Like I know that you have like listening mechanisms, but how do you think through it?

[00:08:38] Lori Borg: Oh, that’s a good question. I think, um, you know, in the boardroom and speaking at the executive level, I think a lot of it does again, come back to creating that culture of agility and it.

It does need to be created from the top down. Mm-hmm. Um, because it impacts how you invest the horizons that you’re planning things on, the rigor and discipline that you put around processes and activities that you’re doing so that you can move quickly if you need to. Um, so I think a lot of it comes down to.

Comes down to making sure that you have the right framework and mechanisms in place to be able to move and to ensure and motivate that everyone on the teams are inspired and want to lean in and learn and stay competitive technically.

[00:09:25] Vince Menzione: So critical there. To your point, like people talk about fail fast, right?

Yes. Fail fast. That’s the term. Fail is used. SAT is used many times. Yeah. In terms of having a growth mindset, like you’ve gotta be able to accept failure.

[00:09:36] Lori Borg: Yeah.

[00:09:37] Vince Menzione: And embrace it.

[00:09:38] Lori Borg: Yeah.

[00:09:38] Vince Menzione: Uh, and it’s okay.

[00:09:39] Lori Borg: And avoid the analysis paralysis. Yeah. Like no analysis paralysis, fail fast and iterate quickly. Yeah.

[00:09:45] Vince Menzione: Very cool.

Yeah. Very cool.

[00:09:47] Lori Borg: Yeah.

[00:09:47] Vince Menzione: So, um, what is the opportunity for our partners today? Like we talked about the fact that they’ve gotta look at embracing change so much is happening.

[00:09:54] Lori Borg: Yeah,

[00:09:55] Vince Menzione: I’d love to talk more about the business and all the changes.

[00:09:57] Lori Borg: Yeah. I

[00:09:57] Vince Menzione: know some of them are still kind of like nestled here. We can’t bring everything up to market, but what are you seeing and what, what do partner, how do partners, what do you, what have been your experiences so far in the first a hundred days?

Oh gosh. Working with these partners and what would you say to them now?

[00:10:11] Lori Borg: Yep.

[00:10:12] Vince Menzione: About what we need to go do better and differently.

[00:10:15] Lori Borg: Alright, so I’m gonna get on my soapbox a little bit on the topic of technical intensity. Uh, some of my, some of my team who might be watching, we hear, we talk about it a lot, and Satya, I think coined the phrase technical intensity.

I remember watching him talk about it for the first time at, I believe in Ignite in maybe 2018, somewhere around that time. And the concept of technical intensity really is twofold. Part of it is being. Intentional about using and staying up with the latest and greatest Microsoft technology. So that’s part of it.

But the other part of it is using that technology to really create something special and unique. Unique IP, baking it into your services and offerings. And I think for. All of us at a very personal level, as well as leading our teams. And in our organizations, it’s critical to have technical intensity at the heart of what we’re doing.

Um, I will just say very personally, I, I’m certainly not a technologist and I need to kind of push myself every day to go, okay, how could this be done differently? How could this be done better? I’m gonna carve out. 20 minutes or two hours on the weekends to go learn about a new thing so that I can show up better and stronger for myself and for my team.

And I think we talk so much about ai, we talk so much about how it’s changing everything and the opportunity in front of us. But we really need to hold the mirror up. Yeah, I do as well. And go, what am I doing to make sure I’m using it for myself? Yes. And I’m encouraging and supporting my teams to be using it as well.

I think that’s one of the biggest things as we think about looking into Microsoft’s new fiscal year, there’s so much opportunity with ai. But we can spend all day talking about how are we gonna build it into our offerings and roll it out to our customers. Yeah. But what are we doing inside of our own houses?

So good to, to build agents and to use Agen ai, to not just enable ourselves to do things better, faster, cheaper, but to do things differently.

[00:12:18] Vince Menzione: And I think we’re at a cusp of a moment here with Agen ai. Right. We talked about AI now for, it’s going back to 22, 23. Yep. When it first hit chat, EBT, and then copilot, but.

We kind of, you know, we sat back a little bit because we were getting criticized because the CFO wasn’t seeing the benefit. They weren’t seeing the 30% drop in, in cost out of their business from it.

[00:12:39] Lori Borg: Yeah.

[00:12:40] Vince Menzione: Uh, we expected too much too soon.

[00:12:42] Lori Borg: Yeah.

[00:12:42] Vince Menzione: Uh, I, I feel like we’re at a moment now where things are gonna really accelerate and a lot of conversation yesterday with Nvidia and Sandy Gupta talking about AG agentic ai.

Good. I think we have more conversation today with partners. Good. Talking about how they’re applying AG agentic AI into their businesses. Yeah. Cutting costs.

[00:12:57] Lori Borg: Yeah.

[00:12:57] Vince Menzione: Improving efficiencies and, and, uh. Creating better outcomes.

[00:13:00] Lori Borg: Good. That’s good. Yeah. I mean, I think so much of it again, is what are you doing inside of your own businesses?

Yeah. With your sales org, your marketing org, your engineering teams, your product teams, uh, and making sure that from the top down you have champions driving that change in momentum for internal technical intensity, as well as what do you bring to market? What and how are you creating those differentiators?

What, what I

[00:13:24] Vince Menzione: heard you say too is we need to like look in the mirror. Right. Yeah. That was your exact words. Literally

[00:13:28] Lori Borg: those, yeah. Yeah.

[00:13:29] Vince Menzione: And we need to apply it. Like we can’t just sit on the sidelines and kind of watch it go by ’cause it’s happening so fast, right? Yeah. It’s gonna, we’re gonna be, we’re here and it’s gonna be there.

I. Before a day goes by.

[00:13:39] Lori Borg: Yeah. And I think we can’t just sit in our companies and expect that our customers are going to adopt it and tell our customers why it’s so great and how to adopt it when we’re not adopting it ourselves. So I think it starts in our own houses, if you will.

[00:13:53] Intro: Yes.

[00:13:54] Lori Borg: Um, and that’s how we create energy around it because when we can see, oh my gosh, we built an agent that’s able to do this thing for me that we never were able to do before.

We get excited about it and our customers will see that excitement and energy. You know? Yeah. So I think it starts with us. Well, and

[00:14:10] Vince Menzione: you were leading a company that was a leader in Azure. Yep. And migrations and all of that. Yeah. And brought it to a large GSI where you had to basically change, you had to,

[00:14:19] Intro: yeah.

There was a

[00:14:19] Vince Menzione: lot of change management. A lot. Bringing that organization lot Yeah. To to the same level that you were before. Yeah. What do you do internally now at Microsoft on helping them? Look in the mirror. I guess, how do, what do you, is there like a set of instructions we need to think about for our companies?

Like what do we, what do we need to go do with our organizations to get them to that next level?

[00:14:39] Lori Borg: Yeah, that’s a really good question. Um, I, I think Satya, going back to Satya again, uh, a couple of things that he has talked about a lot over the years is creating energy and driving clarity. Uh, that is a lot of where it comes from honestly.

Vince I think is just being able to identify even the motion or the movement around technical intensity inside of my organization and our broader America’s team looking at how can we get everyone excited about, yeah. The impact that technical intensity will drive. So it’s creating the energy, but then it’s also creating clarity on what does that actually mean.

Uh, we can talk a lot about it, but practically speaking, what should I go do as an employee or as a leader or as an executive? To go myself be technically intense. Yes. And also encourage my teams to do the same thing.

[00:15:31] Vince Menzione: And your business is traditionally marketing.

[00:15:33] Lori Borg: Yeah. Go to

[00:15:33] Vince Menzione: market, which generally is not as technically intense.

Right. I.

[00:15:38] Lori Borg: Yes, but well, some might argue, yeah,

[00:15:41] Vince Menzione: it has changed over the years. It has that from

[00:15:42] Lori Borg: a go to market perspective, we should be the beacon Yes, absolutely. Of technical intensity because it’s, it’s creating clarity and it’s, uh, creativity, it’ss content scale engagement. You know,

[00:15:56] Vince Menzione: and the technology has changed rapidly.

Right. I go back to, back in the old days of marketing, we didn’t even know what the outcomes were.

[00:16:02] Lori Borg: Yeah.

[00:16:02] Vince Menzione: And then we layered in Marketo and Iqua and some of those technologies. Now marketing is really the science, the data science.

[00:16:08] Lori Borg: Absolutely. It’s, it is the art, the perfect art and science of, yeah. I love of a great go to market strategy.

[00:16:14] Vince Menzione: So for everyone watching us today, everybody watching on the live stream and the recordings of this, what are the three things that you think. Like, we’re going into this moment and I, I think when we get to our October event, uh, so much will have changed already. Yes. Like we’ll be ready for that next iteration.

Yeah. But during this moment, between now and then, what should the organizations, the partners in the room that wanna be the ultimate partner, how do they move forward and what should they do in this next quarter?

[00:16:41] Lori Borg: Yeah. In

[00:16:41] Vince Menzione: their own businesses.

[00:16:42] Lori Borg: Alright. Uh, well first you heard the technical intensity message, so just that kind of overarches everything else, I think from my perspective is making sure that you’re creating a culture and you’re holding up the mirror personally on what you’re doing.

Um, but if I were to say, what are those three things, the three things I always come back to are, what are you doing to build with, sell with and market with Microsoft? Mm. And. I have been in so many different organizations and have worked with so many different Microsoft partner companies over the years that are really strong at one or two of those things.

Yes, I am a firm believer that where the magic happens is when those three things come together. So as an organization, if you are in the marketing side of the business, make sure that you’re looking across sales and engineering or delivery. If you’re in the sales, do the same engineering do the same? Um, it’s not enough.

To just be great at selling with Microsoft. It’s not enough to just be great at building solutions that are landing in the marketplace, that are showing up well there. And it’s not enough to just be marketing. Yeah. Using the Microsoft resources and kind of snapping in with Microsoft. Right. I think when the magic happens is when those three things happen.

So my feedback or advice would be for partners is you’re starting to get kind of towards the end of Microsoft fiscal year and planning towards the new. Take a couple of steps back and evaluate inside of your organizations, do I have a clear leader or clear strategy around how are we gonna approach selling with marketing, with and building with Microsoft, and how can I make sure those three strategies and or leaders are coming together like a.

Like a braid.

[00:18:23] Vince Menzione: So important. You, you touched on the three of the biggest areas and I’ll, I’ll just comment back. ’cause I’ve, I’ve worked across a lot of these organizations over the years. Yeah. The 99.99% do not get that. And those three organizations, generally the engineering or product organization, the marketing organization, the sales organization, let alone the partner organization that’s managing the relationship, they don’t talk to one another.

I know they don’t do a good job. And I think to your point, you’ve gotta get good at all three of those sets of disciplines. You need to have internal communication. Yeah. And then the way you show up with Microsoft and in a way that you’re demonstrating this is the, this is how we’re addressing each of these areas.

And to your point, like how do, how do I get better at the flywheel? Yeah. On each of these, right. That’s it. That’s right.

[00:19:07] Lori Borg: Yep.

[00:19:07] Vince Menzione: And I’m sure you did this because you led a top company.

[00:19:10] Lori Borg: Well, and this is, uh, for a couple of my roles over the years, my title was Chief Growth Officer, and we kind of came up with that many years ago.

It wasn’t very common the first time. I, I, uh, put that on my business card, if you will. And what it really was for me at the core is how are you looking across all three of those areas in a way that’s strategically designed to drive growth? Um, but they all do need to be interconnected. Yeah.

[00:19:37] Vince Menzione: So let’s talk, I, I double cook a little bit on the role because I don’t know if every partner in the room or watching really understands that what is, what your, how your organization is focused.

Yep. What is the value you bring and work with partners to drive? ’cause it does drive a lot on the demand side, but also drives into the co-selling, which we spent a lot of time on yesterday. But tell, take us through that a little

[00:20:00] Lori Borg: bit. Yeah, sure. Great. Um, I loved how you introduced. To the role as it relates to our worldwide organization.

And then we have the Americas team. And my role and the teams in my organization specifically are our go-to market strategy leaders and teams who are working with partners. Sometimes one-on-one, one to many helping land scaled type motions with a lot of partners. Uh, and so what might be helpful is for me to just take a couple of steps back and start by mentioning there are 165,000 ish partners in the Americas.

So there’s a lot of partners in the Americas, so of course my team is not. Large enough to personally spend all 65,000 spend time with all 165,000 partners. Um,

[00:20:49] Intro: yeah,

[00:20:50] Lori Borg: so we work really hard to be strategic and thoughtful about how can we create. Energy and programs and leverage the great assets that worldwide is building and try to scale those so those 165,000 partners can snap into what matters most to them.

Mm-hmm. Or what will be helpful resources for them from a sales enablement, marketing, technical enablement, um, leveraging different programs and getting involved with different channels and so forth. Yeah.

[00:21:20] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And then you align partners to solution plays. I know that’s a big. Big factor of the, the business.

Yep. And then I also know you do a lot on co-selling. Yeah. Like your, your teams are really responsible. We do, uh, getting the, you know, literally taking the. Yeah. Microsoft side and the partner side and getting them in a room to having a meaningful conversation about co-selling.

[00:21:39] Lori Borg: That’s exactly right. I think, uh, the America’s team in the Americas is where the rubber hits the road.

[00:21:44] Vince Menzione: Yeah.

[00:21:44] Lori Borg: So Exactly. So, uh, that’s where, that’s where the, the magic happens on the ground with the Microsoft sellers and with our partners and the partner sellers working with customers.

[00:21:53] Vince Menzione: And I don’t know if everybody realizes if you’ve been inside Microsoft, as I have in New York, uh, you realize how global an organization it is.

Yes. Uh, you go to a Microsoft event and we, people were in their company colors and like 220 subsidiaries and all that, and then, but Microsoft Americas is more than 45% of the overall business at Microsoft.

[00:22:14] Lori Borg: Yes, it is. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a big part of the overall business’s, and I will say one thing as a partner, I think I work.

A long time with a lot of different people at Microsoft and once or twice I had the impression of do they not talk to each other once or twice? Only once or twice, and I understand now because it’s complicated and big and there’s a lot of different people touching. The same partner ecosystems and communities.

And so we do our best to create clarity and simplify. And I think a lot of the changes that you heard Nicole talk about yesterday and what you’ll see coming as we get closer and closer to the end of fiscal is really Microsoft taking some big, bold steps towards how can we even better clarify and simplify how our partners are working with us, making it easier.

And it’s hard, it’s complicated, it’s hard, you know it, it’s complicated to do it.

[00:23:08] Vince Menzione: We had some sessions yesterday, workshops going on, and we talk about Brandon’s story being so important. Yes. Yeah. Because I’m a Microsoft seller and I’ve got thousands of partners beating on my door. Literally want meetings with me.

Yeah. And why? Why are you different? Like why are you relevant to me? Right. Yeah. So I know that your team spends a lot of time on this. Yeah. But. It is, it is a critical piece to these organizations. They need to stand out, they need to differentiate, they need to add value, they need to understand how to align.

We talked about MA little bit. Yeah. And we’ll talk, talk about M again today. But I do think that that’s, there’s an incredible set of skills from top partners and we’ll have some of them up on stage here as well today to talk through it. But, uh, just incredible things. Um, yeah, so. I’m just thrilled to have you on stage with us today.

[00:23:51] Lori Borg: That’s great To be here. Um,

[00:23:53] Vince Menzione: we could spend the entire day, you and I talking about the I know the business. I know I, there’s a lot of things IW wanna ask you, but I know we’re at the end of fiscal year.

[00:24:01] Lori Borg: Yep.

[00:24:01] Vince Menzione: And I know there’s a lot of change coming. There’s m Mcap START program is only another month and a half, two months away.

I away. I know. We’ll be

[00:24:07] Lori Borg: here before we know it. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:24:09] Vince Menzione: Anything you could signal to this audience that you can say in public that won’t get you in too much trouble.

[00:24:13] Lori Borg: Here’s what I will signal very clearly. I am very excited and optimistic, and this is not a scripted message from Lori. I’m very excited and optimistic about what’s to come.

Nice again, some of what we’ve seen already is Microsoft taking some great big steps towards adding clarity and simplification to get closer to our customers and make it easier for us to partner with our partners. So we’re, we’re gonna, we’re gonna continue to, I love it. Strive towards that. I can’t

[00:24:40] Vince Menzione: wait to see some of the announce.

Been, I can hear, hear more from you. I and

[00:24:43] Lori Borg: partners at the center of it. Man. Center of it, man. I, I love it. Love. Yeah. Partners at the center of it. Yeah.

[00:24:48] Vince Menzione: So, um, so good to have you here today. It’s

[00:24:51] Lori Borg: great to be here. I thank you so much. I would, I would

[00:24:53] Vince Menzione: probably wanna open it up to questions, but we are not set up to do that.

But if people wanna reach out and they have questions, what’s the best way that they can communicate with your team?

[00:25:01] Lori Borg: Hmm. That’s a good question. You, you can always ping me on LinkedIn and you can connect with me there. Absolutely. Uh, connecting with my team, one of the things I will get a give a plug for is our partner hub, our America’s partner hub.

Very nice. So if you’re not already connected there, be sure to connect there. That’s where we, uh, post a lot of, uh, upcoming activities and resources and so forth. So be sure that you’re connected there.

[00:25:25] Vince Menzione: Very good.

[00:25:26] Lori Borg: Yeah.

[00:25:26] Vince Menzione: Partner hub.

[00:25:27] Lori Borg: Thank you. Thank you

[00:25:28] Vince Menzione: so much, Lori. I really appreciate you coming. You bet.

This morning starting us off.

[00:25:32] Lori Borg: Yes, you bet. Getting

[00:25:33] Vince Menzione: us moving in the right direction too. And so great to have you.

[00:25:35] Lori Borg: Thank you. So good to spend time with you. Should you sink the pillow with me?

[00:25:38] Vince Menzione: Absolutely. Anytime. You can take a, well, we’ll send it. Uh, team, we need to send a pillow, Lori’s address, home address, please.

All right. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you so much, Lori. Thanks for tuning into this episode of Ultimate Guide to Partnering. We’re bringing these episodes to you to help you level up your strategy. If you haven’t yet, now’s the time to take action and think about joining our community. We created a unique place, UPX or Ultimate Partner Experience where leaders come to learn from each other.

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