Weird Al, Seinfeld, Partnershipping, and Transactionalism

Speaker 1 00:00:07 The title of this episode is Weird, Al Seinfeld. Partnershipping and Transactionalism. Hi Tracy. Speaker 2 00:00:14 Hey, Tim. It's really good to see you. Speaker 2 00:00:19 So, I started out this episode by saying to Tim, I want to talk about cynicism and fear, because that's exactly where I'm at. Um, and because Tim is a purveyor of sunny optimism, but also kind of helping me reframe my own brain on these things, um, what we actually wound up with today was an episode that is a coda to a lot of our discussions we've been having all year around partnering with the impact economy and what that means for us as businesses. And also what the opportunity is to continue to change the narrative and set a new course for how we work with the impact economy, given that we're all working with some unbelievably strange constraints going on in the world right now. Uh, also super exciting. Tim has officially announced and launched the human stack.com, the human stack.com. Uh, and that is the outcome of like four or five years worth of work, uh, some of which I was very privileged to ride along with when we were working together. So, congratulations, Speaker 1 00:01:33 Tim. Thank you. Yeah, very exciting. Speaker 2 00:01:35 Yeah, it's great. And you've even got branding, which is, you know, super cool grounding. Uh, and lastly, we talk about all of our travels, the connections we've been making, the trust building exercises, we're trying to do mentorship and, and how our thinking is constantly iterating. Um, we really would love to hear what resonates with you in this one, because kind of took a very wide pallet of themes and condensed them into 40 minutes of talk. So also know that at some point there will be a future episode called Tim and Tracy Tell all the Stories, because I think we've made references to these epic and hilarious and fun and life changing events that at some point as a follow up to our why it matters episodes for ourselves from a couple of years ago. It would just be fun to sit around and like tell some fireside stories. So Speaker 1 00:02:34 That would be fun. Speaker 2 00:02:36 Hope everybody enjoys this one and know that this episode started from a really dark place, but I think it ended in a really great one. So enjoy. Speaker 1 00:02:47 Hello my friend. It has been a minute. It's great to see you. It Speaker 2 00:02:52 Sure has been. Yeah. Um, it's been kind of crazy lately, right? Speaker 1 00:02:56 Oh, man. Yeah, it has been very crazy. Um, I know you've got travel. I thought that we would just start with like updates and uh, like travels, that kind of stuff before we launch into our topic. Speaker 2 00:03:12 Well, I, I was thinking this episode, you know, rather than do the whole, you know, we're gonna teach you something important. Let's, let's, Speaker 1 00:03:19 This is, wait, can we ever do that? Don't think we've ever in our life, we do that at Speaker 2 00:03:23 The every episode we're like, Hi, Tim. Hi. Speaker 1 00:03:25 Hello. We're here to teach you something important. Great. Speaker 2 00:03:28 Please pay attention because you'll need it later. We just can't forget how later. Yeah. Uh, no. I was gonna say, this is like the Seinfeld episode almost, right? Cause remember Feld was a show about nothing, but this is actually a show about something that we're gonna frame in that framework. Speaker 1 00:03:45 All right? I think what you're saying is that we're gonna, Speaker 2 00:03:49 We're gonna feld this, Speaker 1 00:03:50 We're gonna feld this sounds great. Factoids about, about Feld. Do you remember Kramer? Yeah. Did you ever see uhf, which is the single weird WL movie? Speaker 2 00:04:05 Weird WL Yank, Speaker 1 00:04:07 Yes, yes, Yes. Course. And Kramer Kramer is Stanley Sadowski who like, Yes, yes. Stanley Sadowski is Kramer, and yeah. So he's like the guy that like saves the TV station and, and all that. Speaker 2 00:04:22 Anyway, okay. There is a Daniel Radcliffe weird WL movie somewhere out there that I just, Speaker 1 00:04:28 I Speaker 2 00:04:28 Know Sails for. I'm like, it's on one of these little obscure networks Yeah. Where you're just like, Oh, it's on like, Yeah. Telemundo North, South, right? Yeah. Africa, like Japan. And you're like, Well, how the hell do Speaker 1 00:04:43 I get that? I know. Yeah. You're, you're like, you're like doing remote, remote VPNs so you can access it. Yeah. Right. So Speaker 2 00:04:50 Clearly Speaker 1 00:04:51 I need to do something. I have, I have seen that. But also Speaker 2 00:04:55 He's amazing, is weird. Speaker 1 00:04:57 He does. It's shocking. Yeah. And Speaker 2 00:04:59 You're one of the only people in my life old enough to remember when Weird Al was on Dr. Demento gosh Day. My Speaker 1 00:05:07 Right. Dr. Demento. I've not, I'm not shot about Dr. Demento in a hot minute. Yeah. Like, like in a hot two decades. Uh, so yeah, like in a hot, because we I know exactly 20 Speaker 2 00:05:19 Years ago and an Speaker 1 00:05:20 Eight. So crazy. Okay. I saw Weird Al in concert. I was like row three in it. Uh, at a weird and weird Al is weird. And he's nothing compared to his fans. I think there were people that had not left their, their basements for a long time that, that were at that show. Speaker 2 00:05:39 I mean, the only sanctioned performance of, uh, Rains in Africa that I can get behind, that's the remake. Some band remade it. I can't remember what, like Toto did Africa. Right. I bless the rains now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right, right. Um, you know, and my line on Remaking anything that Toto did is when you score a freaking dune film, you can remake a Toto song. Um, and since nobody's done that, I'm like, therefore Toto songs are off limit, but there is a performance of whatever that new band that did Africa again, uh, with Weird Al as the guest. So he comes on with his accordion and everything, and it's really Speaker 1 00:06:23 Like, No way. So Speaker 2 00:06:25 Yeah, Speaker 1 00:06:25 That guy is the best musician. Yeah. Really. Like, we should talk about how he is funny, you know? But that guy can play. He, you know, So anyway. Yeah. That is, I don't even remember how we got on this, like house Speaker 2 00:06:42 The world you brought up. Speaker 1 00:06:43 Oh, yeah. Stanley Sadowski, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love the, I love that the kid, he's got the, this kid finds a marble in the oatmeal and then gets to drink from the fire hoses. Like I'm saying, it's just like, so, so like, burned in my memory is Okay. So, um, so wonderful. All right. So this is gonna, That Speaker 2 00:07:02 Just cheered me up immensely. Speaker 1 00:07:04 Yeah. Weird, weird. Has a, has a way of doing that. So, um, okay. Yeah. So, um, I hit the road last week and had the best week, and I want to tell you about it because it was so incredibly fun. Okay. Um, so I've Speaker 2 00:07:21 Been hitting my head against a wall for three or four weeks. So like, do tell Speaker 1 00:07:25 Yeah. No, my week, my week sounds better already then. Yeah. Um, so, you know how much I love to travel. I do. It like feeds my soul. It gets my, you know, my extrovert muscle working. I get out of the Bozeman Shire here, get to like, travel the middle earth, you know, like, it was so great. Um, so I went to Speaker 2 00:07:46 Sendoff in Speaker 1 00:07:47 All of this. Uh, I have no idea. I have no idea. Um, but I, I got to go up and meet Naje Kasam from great, uh, Kela and fundraising kit, and was there to do some advising on fundraising kit, um, which was really cool. His, like, that tool has, has so much potential and the team behind it is just fantastic. So it was really fun to talk with them, um, and, and take a look that they were doing. Spend a day with them and Jenny went with me. So we got some time to hang out in Vancouver and see the city we got. We ate in that, like the restaurant that spends Speaker 2 00:08:28 At the, at the, Yeah, I've got up there. That's really fun up there. Yeah, Speaker 1 00:08:32 It was really fun. Really cool. Speaker 2 00:08:33 I ate up there too, and I was asked in Vancouver, I was like, I didn't do a full meal, but I was like, I just wanna get something to Speaker 1 00:08:38 Eat up here. No. Yeah. It was fun. It was very fun. I did, uh, I left my phone and did like a time lapse on the whole way around, which was also very fun. Anyway, were Speaker 2 00:08:48 There some football fields? Speaker 1 00:08:50 <laugh>, You know what I, I, I, I shot about that multiple times while I was, was up there because that was so great. Speaker 2 00:08:57 Um, Yeah, that was good. Speaker 1 00:08:59 So, uh, I did that, uh, that was really great. And then I flew to, to Dreamforce and was at Dreamforce for from eight in the morning, and then I flew out at eight that night. So into San Francisco, ADM out of Oakland, 8:00 PM It was great to be at a Dreamforce again. I gotta see Katie McFadden, Tim Forbes, Ryan Ozimek, uh, my mentee Kenny, Kenny Johnson, who was just killing it. A really, really great guy. Uh, hang out with, uh, I saw Marisa and, um, and, uh, had dinner with Amy, um, Amy Kok, which was great. Um, so it was really like, and I'm forgetting other people I saw in there as well, I'm sure. But it was really fun to just like, go in no sessions. Did not even care. Did not get a pass. Although I did, I did grab a free meal, uh, thank you Salesforce very much for that. And, um, yeah, it was great. It was really fun. Um, amazing to see the gang and to remember like, okay, they're real humans here. And that was really, really great. Uh, Speaker 2 00:10:10 What I love about that is like, you know, what are we up to like 18, 19 listeners now? It's probably all those people listening who are like, Oh yeah, I Speaker 1 00:10:18 Saw Tim. I hope so. Yeah, it'd be great. Yeah. Speaker 2 00:10:19 You know, <laugh> Speaker 1 00:10:20 Well, and I had breakfast with your wife, which was the perfect way to start it all off. So that was, that was, uh, absolutely amazing. Speaker 2 00:10:28 I actually looked at my work schedule for a hot minute to see if I could make that work, and it would not Rehears, I Speaker 1 00:10:34 Was, I, I, I almost was like, Hey, come out to play. But then I was like, I know you've got that, you've got that wall you gotta keep hitting your head against, though. I don't wanna get, I do. Speaker 2 00:10:43 It's like a sport, you know, I'm, what you can't see right now on the video is I'm like, Jack Nicholson's joker. I'm just covered with like, pancake makeup to keep you guys from seeing the blood on recording, you know? Speaker 1 00:10:56 Awesome. That's, that's amazing. Um, so pancake makeup, I don't ne you know what? I'm not even jumping into that. Uh, Speaker 2 00:11:05 I think that's what it's called. I Speaker 1 00:11:06 Don't know. I did, Who was it? I was telling the story of the day that I met your wife. Oh, yeah. Um, and, and, uh, and told you about that meeting. Some day we need to have an episode where we talk stories like the Yeah. It's Speaker 2 00:11:20 Traci stories, Speaker 1 00:11:20 It's big stories episode, because Yeah, that would be fun. That'd be fun. The sponsor table, some point Speaker 2 00:11:24 Our listenership will find Speaker 1 00:11:25 It funny. Exactly. Yeah. You know, uh, so that was really great. And then, um, I flew to Albuquerque, um, to do some writing. So I had free days to, to set aside where I just did writing. I also spoke at the m and a conference remotely. Yep. Which was, so I interviewed, um, um, Amy, Sample Ward and a Bruce, you Yeah, it was really fun. I hadn met Afu before, but, um, really great. And I remembered that book is unique. So we're talking about the, the tech that comes next. And I feel like I knew this, but it crystallized listening to the two of them talk that a and, and I don't, I feel like I've missed this as well. Their view of technology as a platform to perform social justice activism is I think not something all of us, even those of us that are, you know, in tech for good spaces, really grasp the power of, and I think they put that in the book and it's two degrees out of alignment. So a lot of us are missing that. But I really caught that in a, in a fresh way listening to them. And that's such a powerful idea. Speaker 2 00:12:38 Well, I mean, it's actually also kind of similar to the kind of stuff that, like Sheila Warren talks about with Crypto Council for Innovation, Right? She's like, there's a huge missed opportunity here for social justice in the crypto world. And she's like, everybody's obsessed with whether or not it's real, and nobody's obsessed with how to make other things real through utilization. And, you know, she's got a team now over there and it's really fun watching her kind of grow that. But, you know, at the end of the day, like there is some missed opportunity in the tech world, Speaker 1 00:13:17 Right? Absolutely. And yep. Speaker 2 00:13:19 You know, it gets to one of the things that we want to talk about today, you know, and that is what, what, what's the movement that we're seeing and why? But yeah, I, I, I agree with that perspective. I think I have lived enough in my life where, um, you know, I am a little bit more cynical on how that persec perspective can reconcile itself with the ordinary ebb and flow of the corporate world that usually these things come out of. And I don't agree that the answer is then therefore destroy capitalism. Uh, because as a former Eastern European studies major, like I've seen what happens when countries decide to nuke their entire, like, political and economic systems and it's ugly for 50 years. Yeah. And you could almost point a direct line between what's going on in Ukraine with Russia back to that moment where the Soviet Union collapsed, because, you know, this is all about empire building, and if you don't have an empire to build, then what do you have? Right? So it's, you know, I'm a little cynical on that, but I appreciate that it's out there. I try and translate it the best I can to Speaker 1 00:14:39 Well, and the other thing that you say about that, Yeah, I get that. And I think that that must even be harder for you having worked on the corporate side, you know, both before and now. But that, I think the thing I love about what Amy and Afu are saying is that, you know, like that's gonna be what it is. Yeah. Right. So let it be. But that's not all there is. So there are all of these other spaces where there are other things that can be done more directly. And I, I, at first I was like, Why are they writing this to so many audiences? Yes. And by the end, I was like, it's because every audience has to play a part, and those audiences need to take a, a good hard look at what they're doing and how they participate. And I was like, that, that it feels so similar to, you know, what we've been up to for so long. Speaker 1 00:15:37 And I was like, Okay, that, that makes sense. So I agree that at the corporate level, like there's probably less leverage. Yeah. But at the, at, you know, at other a level Well, and the professional services level, like yeah. You know, I think that there's more that can be done anyway, so it was great to interview them. Um, and then I hung out with, uh, the We are for Good team, um, which was really fun. Oh my gosh. Like, it was so great to meet them in person. Um, all four of them. So Abby and Julie and John and Becky were all there. And, and, um, you know, be like going to this conference that I was a part of that was around, it was really cool, uh, to, to just hang out with them. So, um, and, uh, also met Keana Palmer, which was really fun as well. Speaker 1 00:16:28 <affirmative>, uh, to, to meet, to meet Keana. And they got some writing done. So our website, so this is the other update, is that our website for the Human Stack launched yesterday. The, I had, um, an interview, coincidentally an interview with, uh, we forget that also. Yep. Came out yesterday. So, um, and, uh, we're two cohorts down, and like, I, I, I feel so excited about what we're learning and what we're doing on Human Stack. Um, it feels like, you know, this is a real brand now. So, um, so yeah, those are my updates. It's been, uh, it's been, that's all in the last nine days, so that has been a whirlwind of stuff, but really, really fun. Speaker 2 00:17:11 Well, and for folks who are listening, you can't see the video right now. Uh, I it's funny, like when we started putting this podcast out on real, like podcasting platforms, like the YouTube thing tanked, but the listenership Speaker 1 00:17:25 Yeah, absolutely. Right. Speaker 2 00:17:26 Yeah. Which kind of makes sense, right? Because you're like, Why would I play this in YouTube and I can just like, plug it in somewhere, anywhere else? Right. But there's two things I wanna point out. One is Tim is in full living color. Um, it looks like they finally colorized Montana, which is great. Uh, and you know, Tim's also got like a big neon capital a right behind him, uh, which is cool. Uh, you know, and that's, that's the new brand. And it's been really, I tell folks where I currently work at the day job, you know, about going on this journey and transforming the business that was into the business that will be. And that Speaker 1 00:18:05 Was a crazy, Speaker 2 00:18:05 I say like, it's really fun because I'm kind of in this place in my life where I'm like, Great, I have a job. I like my job, I like my coworkers. There's a lot of hard work to do. Sometimes it's crazy, but life is good. And like, I don't need to do the things I did a decade ago for me to feel like I have a place in this world. But what's really fun is, is kind of watching this like 10 year kind of role reversal where everybody's like him lock and that person that hangs out with him, you know, <laugh> <laugh>. And I think it's Speaker 1 00:18:41 No way, I don't think, Chad, I Speaker 2 00:18:42 Think it's awesome. Speaker 1 00:18:43 That's amazing. Yeah. Speaker 2 00:18:45 And, and I'm like so happy for you watching this launch because it's needed, it's needed to stem the tide of other sort of meta shifts that I'm watching that I think can actually give people real tools. Speaker 1 00:19:00 Yeah. Speaker 2 00:19:01 You know? Speaker 1 00:19:01 Yeah. I, and you know, we, Well, Speaker 2 00:19:03 I'm happy for you. I'm ecstatic actually. Speaker 1 00:19:05 Thank you so much. Yeah. I, I am too. Um, I think I'm mostly happy happy because for a good solid nine months, I think both of us were like all that stuff. We learned, all the stuff we put together the last few years, Like, doesn't what happened? You know, like, where's it gonna land? And it was not clear that there was a landing spot for it. And I, you know, I feel like that that would've been, it wouldn't have just been hard for me because, you know, it was a waste of time and I'd have to go find a real job or something. But I think it was, it would be hard because I do actually believe this can move market in a positive direction, so. Right. That's what I've been up to. Um, I know that you did some travel, and I wanna hear about the conference that you went to. Speaker 2 00:19:52 It was insightful. Uh, so I traveled, uh, you know, by the time this is out, it'll have been like two months ago, but I went to a conference in Miami called Catalyst. And let me just tell you, Miami in late August is not cold. Um, <laugh>, Speaker 1 00:20:11 Nope. Speaker 2 00:20:14 But, um, you know, I I, I had a couple of great aha moments during the course of it. Like, so if you think about how people get into business partnerships, right? There's a few paths. And my path is much less traditional than I think a lot of people's paths, because a lot of people go from sort of salesperson to customer success, person to partner, success person, right? And that starts their journey in business partnerships. And then they learn like the sort of like hyper rapid, hyper transactional kind of nature of sales is not actually what partnerships need. So, you know, that's a learning curve for people. And there are a lot of people at that conference who are sort of new to the field of partnerships who are like, Oh, wow, this isn't a sales job. Right? And what I liked about the approach that they were taking is like, look, we have to start thinking about partnerships as an industry. Speaker 2 00:21:19 We have to start thinking about professionalizing partnerships and creating real professional benchmarks for people so that these jobs don't become the things that we're all afraid they're gonna become. And that is, you know, just a hyper transactional extension of sales. And, you know, there's a couple of tidal waves happening right now in the world. One is everybody's going into sort of knee your recession planning. And from a meta contextual standpoint, and I'm happy to be wrong about this, but I don't think that's actually true. I think, I think we're living with another crushing externality with the war in Ukraine. Um, but that does, what that also means is the sooner that thing is resolved, you know, it's gonna snap back relatively quickly. Uh, one way or another it will be resolved. It has to. Um, but you know, why that's important is because for the first time ever, like, I actually heard other professionals on stage talk about business partnerships, not as the only thing that attacks on ACV into an opportunity, Right? Speaker 2 00:22:33 And talk about fostering things like trust and alternative KPIs for measuring partner performance. And I asked a lot of questions. I was like, Hey, like, you know, I work in an ecosystem where the majority of partners are small businesses and occasionally punctuated by large actors. You know, so like, how do you measure KPIs that actually help a business perform so that as you grow the business grows and vice versa? Right? You know, that's the kind of stuff that keeps me up at night is if I'm a partnerships director, I need to think about three or four key things. I need to think about democratic access to my business that I'm leading partnerships for, right? So there can't be like the actual or perception of favors in that ecosystem. And democratic access is a really wide thing, right? It's a like, how do I make sure everybody has the same enablement? Speaker 2 00:23:33 How do I make sure everybody has the same pathways to sales reps? How do I make sure everybody has the same pathways to product roadmap? And how do I give everybody input into product and community, right? In a democratic fashion? But then how do we reward ambition and growth, right? That's another thing. And how do we make sure that that growth isn't codependent and predicated on, you know, kind of strange economic kind of actions? And then ultimately, how do we foster genuine community, uh, which is to me, always a linchpin of fostering connection between the impact economy and the, and the commercial businesses that serve them, right? So these are the big picture kind of questions that I'm thinking about. And for the first time I went to a conference where people are like, Yeah, we're actually thinking about that too, except, you know, I serve manufacturing, or I had a great conversation with this one guy who was like, from a platform that literally tracks the, uh, it's not the flatbed trucks, but it's the shipping containers. Speaker 2 00:24:41 Containers. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like how all containers are standardized, right? Like, his company is a, is an app that tracks shipping containers and connects. That's amazing to, And I was like, Dude, this, I mean, it, it, for lack of a better way of saying it, this shit was fascinating. Absolutely. And, you know, he was telling me about like, yeah, when we, when we turned into, you know, again, I'm gonna use my language for it, but like, when we turned into like a polyamorous entity and realized that integrations and applications increase customer stickiness and partner satisfaction, it changed our year over year retention unbelievably. Yep. You know, in our world. And I think that that has always been something that has been, you know, deep in my heart around, you know, when I get up on a rampart and scream, like non-profits should own their own data. Speaker 2 00:25:35 When I, when I get up on a rampart and scream like, you know, we have to do better for the impact economy. It's that kind of thinking that's informing it. Because what I see is a world where, you know, two things are true. You can make a dollar and a cent, You might not be able to make it the same way you make it serving other commercial business to business entities, but you can make a dollar and a cent and you can also elevate the organizations that are actually using your tool. Right. And, you know, full disclosure, I got on in the pre pregame for this call, and I was like, the name of this episode should be cynicism and Fear. Cause that's exactly where I'm at. And, and Tim, you did what you do, and you're like, Well, let's take a step back for that. Speaker 2 00:26:25 I'm like, uh, but you know, my fear is genuinely that this unbelievably chaotic moment in our world where we just put in, you know, a government in Italy that is just shy of Benito mu Salini in terms of its stinking and perceptions. You know, we have Russia threatening to actually use nuclear devices on the battlefield in Ukraine, Right? Like, my fear is that those things are driving us backwards in terms of like, Oh crap, doing all this other stuff feels like a lot of work right now, but we know these knee-jerk motions work. So we're just gonna go back to our knee-jerk motions, which are very, very transactional and longitudinally, in my opinion, detrimental to the impact economy. Because that's not an economy that thrives on transactionalism. That's an economy that thrives on partnership. Right? So anywho, um, the conference was super affirmational. I got to connect with a few teams at work. Um, I, I will give a shout out publicly to an old friend and mentor Dave Averell from Salesforce, where, you know, I finally got to see everything that he was doing reflected in my own actions. I was like, Why does Dave do this? Oh, why did Dave? Oh, you know, so it was nice and great, you know, I had a moment to thank him at a party. Um, I went to exactly one event at the massive Dreamforce thing. It was a party that, uh, Idealist. Did Speaker 1 00:28:05 You go to the engagement party? Speaker 2 00:28:06 I went to the Idealist Man Engagement Party. Speaker 1 00:28:08 Rob invited me to that, and I was like, I really wanna go. Speaker 2 00:28:12 Okay. So Rob wasn't there, which was hilarious. What? So yeah, it was great. It, I I, there's some, this saved this one for our stories episode, but that was a really funny party. All right. That sounds, But I had opportunity to thank Dave for his, like, mentorship and kind of like watching his structured thinking around this. Um, and you know, so, you know, I I, I will say that my deep concern over the next few months and into 2023 is that everybody wants to retreat to motions. They know work. And this is exactly the moment where we need to do the opposite. Um, and it's really funny, coming outta that conference, I had a conversation with a guy that I'm hoping to pull into this podcast. But, you know, he tapped into something in my LinkedIn profile, which was a talk I gave like five years ago called The Technology Strategy of Love. Um, and he was like, This is exactly what we need right now. And I was like, I, I literally, I God's bless him. Like, I had to go back and reread it because I was like, I forgot that I did that <laugh>. Um, and I also forgot what I said. Was Speaker 1 00:29:27 That the Traction conference that you, that you keyed? Speaker 2 00:29:30 No, uh, it was at a net squared, net ho not net hope, but net squared. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, there's a lot of net net Speaker 1 00:29:37 Lots, lots of nets that are here. Speaker 2 00:29:39 Yeah. Lots of nets. Uh, it was like 300 people. So it was kinda small. Speaker 1 00:29:42 Ok. Fun. Speaker 2 00:29:43 Uh, the traction thing was different. Um, but you know, much like, uh, UNC Canto, we don't talk about traction <laugh>. Okay. So, so anyhow, um, yeah, long Speaker 1 00:29:57 Story. Okay. So here's, here's where Speaker 2 00:29:59 I reread it and I was like, Oh my God, Tracy, were you high when you wrote this? Cause this is so far out, like stuff. Um, so I've had a moment to sort of sit in a bit of cynicism because the distance between who I was when I wrote that and the distance to where I am now feels very far in my mind, you know? Speaker 1 00:30:21 Yeah. I mean, um, that, that totally, totally makes sense. Um, like a lot, a lot of shit's gone down since then. Um, okay. So people are going to like kneejerk back to what they know for sure. Like, that's like, that's expected. Um, not all of those knee-jerk reactions are bad. Like, this is the first thing you wanna say. The second thing is, is that I do think that partnerships will sort themselves out in the long run and show that Transactionalism is not the best way to conduct business, and that that will show up faster in partnerships than it will with customers. Because Speaker 2 00:31:10 With, I think Speaker 1 00:31:10 That's right too. You know? Yeah. With customers you're building, you really are focused in sales is focused on a transaction moment. Like that's the whole point. Um, partnerships, you are focused on a conveyor belt of actions. And if, you know, if like people will have very little patience for, uh, for a transactional mode of conveyor belt like that, just, that just is a, it's more obvious that you're not in it for the long haul. You're just in it for like the short transaction. I just don't think that that will be as effective, uh, you know, as it is in, in sales. Does that make sense or am I naive? Speaker 2 00:31:53 No, I don't think you're naive. I think what it is, is that, you know, I, I hate to go sort of hyper capitalist meta here, but you know, when you are running a business, your primary customer is your business, right? So at some point that conveyor belt works, and I have seen businesses, you know, grow really well playing that conveyor belt. Now, I, I, I'm not gonna name names, but I will say, do do people like or respect them as businesses? Do people like or respect their owners? No, they actually don't. Um, but it works. So when your primary incentive and your primary customer is your business, those actions work really well. And what we need to start thinking about, you know, and I think there's a lot of people thinking this way, but there's no, there's not yet a perfect path, is what I would say. Speaker 2 00:33:00 Yeah. There's a lot of people who are thinking like, great, like if the knee-jerk things work, then we're gonna do it. But the problem is, is a lot of people right now in this moment are not talking about what works for the next three to six months, because a lot of people are pointing backwards and saying, Hey, um, we, uh, you know, we're watching the world burn because we made a lot of decisions that worked for three to six months. So like, maybe we need to adjust the timeline of our thinking around what it means to do this stuff. Right? And that is something that is not economically incentivized in a growth motion. Speaker 1 00:33:44 Yeah. No, I think that's true. I would Speaker 2 00:33:47 Also, that's the challenge that we have is how do you ex how do you economically incentivize long tail thinking? Speaker 1 00:33:54 Well, and partly the, you know, and I've, I watched this, you know, being at every level, I think in the, as a partner with salesforce.org, um, <laugh>, like, I think now it matters was every level on there at some point. Um, which I think is really, really interesting. And I, I, I personally felt like there's more than one type of partnership, and a lot of corporate models don't allow for that. Yeah. So I think one, that's right, one issue is, you know, like if in, and a lot of this got, you know, like who did you know inside the partnership program, which is fine. And, um, what, what level of, um, like what were you there to do? So now it matters was always there to try and shift the market in a different way. Like, our business model was to create, create experts. And that's what we did really well. Speaker 1 00:34:56 Um, we did not create a high amount of throughput for acv, like, and, and never planned to. And, um, and I think that that was, I just think that there need to be in these partnership programs, I think there need to be different ways of operating in that. And to your point, one of the, one of the things I kept finding was that, um, corporations don't know, they, they can't hold up a mirror to themselves and say, What value could I be to, uh, to this partner? And, you know, That's right. And, and I feel like that's right for small businesses, there's a completely different playbook than for larger actors. That's right. And you could be, like, the partnership program could be an absolute hero. The way that the Trailblazer program is for individuals in the Salesforce ecosystem, that type of economic incentive to learn a platform and go deep with it Speaker 2 00:35:58 Yep. Speaker 1 00:35:59 Could have twice the power if it were approached, if, if partnerships were approached with the same degree of build your skillset and your, your business here. And I just think, uh, I think there's a low, I think that there's a low threshold for understanding how valuable that could be for really small businesses that are just getting started. Speaker 2 00:36:20 Well, I will say, and, and I mean this is the job that I'm on about right now. It's like, how do we build a partnership program for an impact economy serving business from scratch, essentially? Yeah. Right? And, and do so in a way that respects existing means of revenue, which are very wide and diverse. Um, but also changes that thinking. And the best I got down that path so far is a rubric is, is rubric, no rubric's, the wrong word, is a matrix of KPIs that answer four questions. Right? The four questions are what builds the partner business? What builds the customer success? What builds actual growth? Meaning like money and economy and what builds shared brand, Right? And you know, so like my first attempt at that is to say, we can't have a program that has too many KPIs that are sitting solely in the growth comp. Speaker 1 00:37:25 Yep. Right? Speaker 2 00:37:26 So you have to have a program that answers those other questions. And you know, hopefully some of that will make its way into it. I don't know, like it's too early to tell, right? So, you know, but if that's the best thinking I've gotten down that path so far is we need to stop asking what builds growth alone and start asking other questions and let asking those questions shape the categorization of the KPIs that we're using to measure a business partnership ecosystem. Uh, which is one better answer than I had before, uh, than when we last talked about this. Cause I was like, I don't know. I don't know what's gonna happen here. But, you know, that's, that's the outcome of, you know, why I'm wearing all the pancake makeup to hide the blood from banging my head against the wall is, you know, God if, and, and I, you know, the other thing that happened for me, truly, um, just going back to the start of this episode, and I will call this out because Wow. Speaker 2 00:38:31 Um, I'm not frequently a person to exhibit vulnerability in, in, in like real life. I'm just not. Um, I, I've learned the hard way that you exhibit vulnerability in the world is kind of like, here's a bunch of, hyen is ready to eat ya. Um, but I will say that one thing that really kicked me down was, uh, I got the Covid S in July and you know, this, this virus affects everybody differently. We know that already. Uh, we know the variance just blew through, you know, the four vaccinations I had against the core thing, you know, like tissue paper. Cuz that's the nature of epidemiology. By the way. This is not an anti-science rant. So like, sorry, if you're looking for me to say something like extreme, I'm not, What I'm saying is, is science works and that's how vaccines work and that's why we get a flu shot every year. Speaker 2 00:39:35 But, you know, my point being, it affected me profoundly, and I was looking at my exercise tracking and it was like, it went from like high output in June to zero, July and August. Like I'm still recovering from it. It took me a long time. And like Tim, you know, like I called you four weeks into the jig being like, I'm losing my damn mind here. Um, so, and what's really funny is, uh, a colleague at work, uh, was like, you know, I thought you were being dramatic about this sort of brain fog thing. And then I got CO and oh my God, you were totally right. <laugh> <laugh>. Speaker 1 00:40:19 Oh, it is a beast. Speaker 2 00:40:21 Absolutely. Why I'm saying this all is because, um, where was I going with this? It was tying back to we have to do something different, right? And if, if we can't look at that kind of thing from the lens of like, well, what happens when one of my business partners has the same shit happened to their staff? You know, if all we're doing is looking at partnerships through transactionalism and growth, that means that that partner's output is gonna go down and you're not gonna track the fact that they're just a human trying to take care of their team and their business. Right? Yep. That's the fallacy of that thinking. And that's, that's the point. Yep. Um, you know, along the way with Science Works, please get vaccinated and like stop the q and on anti-VAX stuff please. People, it's really not serving anybody. But aside from that, like truly that's the kind of partnership that we want in our world where it's like, Okay, man, like I got it. You know, like your business. Well, and I think that right now, what can we do to help keep your business moving forward? Speaker 1 00:41:32 And the more, the more that you think about partnerships as building relationships between people Yeah. The healthier and more long term, those partnerships are gonna be. Um, you know, because to your point, you can have a high a CV and that may, that may not be telling you the data that you think it is. Yeah, that's right. That may not be building the experience that you, your customers want to have. Right. And I think that that is, I think that's material to it. I would also say, um, that a lot of what, what I've found missing in a lot of the partnership programs, and I'm like, like, this is not my usual advice. But, you know, as I'm thinking about this and being a partnership business owner, I feel, I feel like especially for small partners, a lot of, a lot of benefit could come from just recognizing how important, letting partners, letting small business partners know their business is real and seen Yeah. Would go like, yeah. Small personal actions would outweigh large enablement plays like Speaker 2 00:42:53 Every Speaker 1 00:42:53 Time, every single time. I know. And it's so simple and, and just, you know, like you're, you know, you'll spend months building a playbook, um, and then, and you know, not because it needs to be done. So I'm not saying it's either or, but I do think that that, that was one of the things that I learned. And I think that, um, Salesforce really took a shift when Amy came on and started making those kinds of plays where it was, um, you know, it was more personalized. The summits started to happen. There was a lot of, you know, here's something to learn and sometimes it was not on brand what was, what was getting taught. And I just appre like, I thought all the partners are respected and appreciated that. So I feel like, you know, there's a lot Speaker 2 00:43:42 There too. I mean, I'd be remiss if I didn't say like some of those best outputs is, you know, informing my own playbook for where I'm at in my day job because I'm like, Okay, we did some things right here. Yeah. Like, you know, I tell folks at work all the time, I know partnership programs from having lived through it with Black Bought as a customer. Yep. I know partnerships from having built it, you know, at Salesforce and I know partnerships from having been on the advisory board at Tech for Social Impact. Right. And Speaker 1 00:44:12 Not to mention owning a business and being a partner. Right. And then being in multiple other businesses as a partner. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Speaker 2 00:44:21 So it's Speaker 1 00:44:21 Like multiple times, Speaker 2 00:44:23 I, you know, what I don't do anymore is say that all of these programs are unhealthy. What I do say is that, you know, know we have to cherry pick now the strategies that really work. Speaker 1 00:44:34 Yep. I Speaker 2 00:44:34 Agree. And we have to apply them judiciously and moments like we're living through. I mean, going back to, to why I wanted to call this episode like fear and cynicism, like moments like we're living through is actually where we need to step into that, right? Yeah. We, we have to, we have to say this is truly an unknown, unknown. Now how successful, you know, any of that will be, time will tell, but you know, it is the consultation that, you know, keeps me up at night these days and ages is like, shoot, you know, it's not enough to do what we've been doing, but the forces of everything else happening in the world is driving us to react right back towards do what you've been doing because it's clearly a path that works. Yeah. Right. You know, and you know what, what they don't see are the thousand kind of conversations that you and I have all the time, or the off the cuff remarks that you'll hear from a partner or a customer that lets you know how they're really thinking about things and there's still a disconnect there, you know, so we have to try Speaker 1 00:45:45 The other thing. Yeah, absolutely. And I, I couldn't agree more that this is not the time to pull back on a strategy that was long term. Doesn't matter. Like all moments are scary. That's the thing I also wanna say to you is I've never known you to not be like looking at the world and saying the macro of everything that's going on leads to this terrible conclusion. And you know, I think that that, because all moments have themes of disaster in them. I'm not saying that this one's not worse. Like abso like, we may be hitting at Crescendo <laugh>, but we may, we may just be like on the front end of that too, so it could, you know, like, and, and I think that that's my point. It is not the, this is not the moment to, um, make a change on a strategy that's been being built. The other thing that I haven't really thought about this before in terms of partnerships, but there are, like, I imagine, and and your current position may not be this at all, but I imagine that there are times at which you don't want a democratic approach. You want a couple of really quick high gunning, Speaker 2 00:46:55 Unbelievably true, Speaker 1 00:46:56 You know, really tight partners to set the stage and to, and to set the bar for what partnership looks like for whatever organization that is. And you, and, and the access on that may not be equivalent to the access on somebody else. That's just like showing up for the first, I I don't feel like, you know, like it has to be democratic and, and equal access from day one. Um, nor do I think that pay, like I actually also think pay to play models are really beneficial at, at some stage again, like at some stage and, and different layers of, and types of partners. But you know, I think that that's, that's all part of the, all part of the message. It's not part of Speaker 2 00:47:37 The math. Right? Yeah, exactly. And that's, you know, to to what we were talking about before we hit record, I think, you know, for me this is the moment where you throw the anchor farthest into the future. Yeah. And then you just make a decision on like how many links you want to implement to get Speaker 1 00:47:57 Yeah, that's Speaker 2 00:47:58 True. Like, that's all you need to do. It's all, that's Speaker 1 00:48:01 Where you're genius too, by the way. Not everybody can, not everybody can like do what you're talking about there. That is a super power of yours. I've seen you do. I saw you do it. No, it matters. I've seen you do it everywhere you go. Um, and I think it's, I I think that that's just like, it's really impressive. It'll be fun to watch how that, how that shakes out. And it's non transactional too. The thing that's interesting about you, Tracy, is that while you are gonna champion that it's non-transactional, you're also very aware that transactions do matter very much. I think that is the, that's the thing. I feel like people can fall on either side where it's kumbaya land or is just like, you know, give me the receipt next in line. Right. Um, and, and I feel like your balance of, you know, hey, we're in this to build relationships and at the same time there's an economic functionality that has to be in place. I just think that that's kinda interesting too. Speaker 2 00:48:58 Ecosystems have differently shaped economic constraints. Speaker 1 00:49:03 Absolutely. Speaker 2 00:49:03 They do. That's the other thing we need to understand. Like, right, I spent, when I was in Miami, I kid you not, I spent six hours out with one sales team, uh, <laugh> and that's all we say. We say what happened in Miami stays in Miami, but the premise of the conversation was like, Hey, we can't trust you if what you're doing is slowing down that exact motion that we need. Right. To fulfill opportunities in this way. And I was like, Okay, you're fundamentally misconstruing what I'm saying. Exactly. So let's talk about it. Right. Let's really talk about it. And we got to some really interesting places in the conversation, like, you know, ultimately, you know, ultimately it was a great night out. It really was. Um, I was exhausted the next day cuz found my way back to the hotel room around two 30 in the morning. But was it worth it? Absolutely. And, and that's what, you know, also you've gotta do is you have to recognize that you can dream a lot, but at the end of the day, there are people's whose livelihoods are not conditioned on that dreaming. Speaker 1 00:50:16 Those dreams need to have legs. Speaker 2 00:50:18 You need to like understand what it is that those livelihoods exist within so that you can like shape your thinking around that too. And it doesn't make it bad, right? Yeah. Like I said at one point during the conversation, look, this is all cultural is what it boils down to more than anything else. I was like, I know sales people really well, and I was like, I've had the privilege of riding aside some really talented sales folks. I was like, I know your world. Like you need to understand, I know your world and the last thing I'm gonna do is, you know, put roadblocks up when you're looking at like three days to respond to an rfi. And all you gotta do is find the right categorization of thing to submit to it. It, you know what I'm saying? Like, I'm not gonna come in and be like, Hey, let's talk about feelings. No. And Speaker 1 00:51:06 Actually, but I think that's what it sounds like when you're talking about transactionalism. I think that it's really important to balance it out with, you know, um, with that. And I know that, um, you're short on time. We are Speaker 2 00:51:18 Last, Speaker 1 00:51:19 Any last, uh, last thoughts on Partnershipping and Transactionalism? Speaker 2 00:51:25 Um, you know, well, Tim, what you're pressing on is super important to understand. And that is, unless we like the royal, we decide what we want to do is fundamentally shift our economy. Um, and I'm not saying that we shouldn't, I'm saying that it's gonna be a 50 year slogging journey that's going to put everybody into poverty and create like mass wide scale like fam uprising. But sure, what I will say is, unless we decide we fundamentally wanna shift the underpinnings of our economy, you know, making the next dollar is going to be equally as important. And it is equally as important to that small business as it is that sales guy who's just trying to like, turn the deal, get the opportunity closed and move forward. Right. So, you know, one of the meta lessons that we have to digest is, you know, there's a lot of nuance when it comes to serving the impact economy and serving it well. Speaker 2 00:52:30 And at the same time, the thing that I don't think we've been great about is educating the impact economy around the real realities of what it means to be a business. Um, yeah. Because we try to hide it in marketing, you know, like we, we try to hide it and do this and you'll feel good, but there's actually some education that needs to take place around, Like if you guys wanna like do 4,000 open source projects with no coherent developer team and 500 like flavors of Linux, go for it. But like, if what you wanna do is buy serious enterprise grade software, you know, we haven't educated the impact economy as to what that really comes with and why folks are acting the way they are in the first place. And I think that's another area we can do better. Speaker 1 00:53:22 Yep. And I think I, I do think, um, I was just talking on another podcast right before this one, I do think professional services is the, is the branch that has to lead the charge on that. And you know, I'm gonna say next is that we need to start focusing on humans. Of course. Yeah. Nobody's gonna disagree with that. Well Speaker 2 00:53:42 That big capital neon, Speaker 1 00:53:44 Right? Yeah. Well, but the, but the point here is like, um, you know, until, until the Big Mac was invented, if you wanted a Big Mac, you couldn't have one. Right. Now, if we want to see like these kinds of, uh, this kind of technology hit the ecosystem way that's gonna land, we have to like balance out and create products that nonprofits can buy that will, uh, more likely lead the outcomes that are positive for them. And right now, I don't, I think that they just know like, okay, it's a crapshoot if we roll the dice on a big expensive system, who knows if that's gonna land. That's right. And that's, and that's not because the software doesn't work and it's not because the non-profit couldn't be capable if they were approached the right way. It's because it's because professional services continues to let Yeah. All like, they, they let non-profits decide what they're going to buy and don't create those products. So I'm with you right there. I think that it is, it really is time for the consultants to say, here is what success looks like. It is purchasable, but it's not free. And, and we're not gonna slide it into the, you know, we're not gonna just slide it into the project management, you know, budget and pad it out because you don't wanna buy it. But we know that you need some of it. So yeah. Anyway, There Speaker 2 00:55:11 You go. Project management's a great skill, but yeah, you're spot. Right. Right. Exactly. I think it's a great place to, to Speaker 1 00:55:16 End it. Yeah. Speaker 2 00:55:17 So thanks folks for bearing with our Seinfeld episode, um, today where we talked about everything and nothing, but hopefully you got something out of it. Speaker 1 00:55:25 Yeah. Partnershipping and transactional is, I think is actually a good way to, to frame it. Um, it's great to see you. Speaker 2 00:55:31 It's great to see you. Tim. Speaker 3 00:55:33 This is Tracy Konza. Speaker 4 00:55:35 And I'm Tim Lockey. 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