
Enterprise Eyeballs: Innovative B2B Marketing Stories · 38 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
32 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
Tammy McDonald, transitioning from sales leadership into channel enablement and marketing, argues that partners should be treated as an extension of your sales team and require structured training and enablement before being expected to sell. She identifies the core problem: sales and marketing work in silos, creating gaps in partner training where contracts get signed but enablement falters. Critical to success is defining your Ideal Partner Profile (IPP) before diving into personas, then creating a specific training progression that starts with the why before features. She emphasizes that partners only engage when they understand both the value proposition and how they'll make money. Post-2020, McDonald recommends returning to high-touch tactics like industry events, personal emails (2-3 points maximum), and even creative hardmail campaigns, while maintaining consistent engagement through quarterly business reviews and specific milestone checkpoints. For B2B leaders managing partner programs, her framework addresses the core challenge of converting partner recruitment into actual revenue generation through systematic, personalized enablement.
Enablement must precede activation because once contracts are signed, partners need structured training, clear value propositions, and specific tools before they can sell effectively - just like you wouldn't put new internal sales reps in front of prospects without proper training.
Within one week of contract signature, schedule a strategic planning session to define who you're targeting for net new business and account-based marketing activities, then roll that into a quarterly and annual plan with specific milestones and accountability checkpoints.
Get specific about your product's value proposition and define exactly which layer of the partner ecosystem matches that value; don't try to recruit every partner type, as being everything to everyone means you'll make money from none of them.
Keep outreach to 2-3 specific, personalized points relevant to their vertical and business context; research your audience thoroughly, avoid generic claims, and combine emails with high-touch tactics like industry events and hardmail campaigns.
Set specific timeline milestones and revenue targets from day one; if a partner consistently shows talk but no action or fails to hit milestones despite your enablement efforts, have a clear conversation about what needs to change or consider ending the relationship.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
The episode offers a coherent but very repetitive loop of roughly four ideas - know your IPP, train before selling, set milestones/QBRs, get executive buy-in - restated in slightly different words throughout. A B2B operator with any channel experience will hear little they don't already know, and roughly 10 - 15% of runtime is consumed by a Flappy Bird game that contributes nothing.
partners are an extension of our sales team, so they should be treated exactly the same
the only reason why partners want to partner with you. Right? Because they're going to make money
The episode leans on universally recycled frameworks (Simon Sinek's Start With Why, the football-team analogy, 'jack of all trades master of none') and delivers a standard channel-management playbook with no contrarian angles or first-principles reasoning. The post-COVID case for physical mailers and in-person events has some timeliness but is underdeveloped.
Simon Sinek didn't have it all wrong when he started with that very basic concept
jack of all trades, master of none
Tammy McDonald is a genuine practitioner who has moved from sales to sales leadership to marketing and built her first partner portal 15 - 16 years ago, giving her real operational credibility. However, no notable companies, revenue scale, or landmark achievements are surfaced in the transcript, so the depth of her experience remains asserted rather than demonstrated.
I built out my first partner portal about, uh, gosh, about this. Well, no, 15 or 16 years ago
when I was in sales, it was because I was right beside the marketing folks saying, no, no, like, this is what I need
The entire episode operates at high abstraction - almost no named companies, no revenue figures, no conversion rates, no before-and-after metrics. The sole data point offered is an uncited '100 new emails a day,' and the most concrete anecdote is a vague recollection of a car-key mailer from distributor days.
sellers easily have 100 new emails a day
I'm getting emails saying, oh, since you work for a fintech company, never worked for a fintech company in my life
The host asks reasonable topical questions but consistently takes lengthy turns to narrate his own design background rather than drawing more out of the guest, and there is zero pushback or challenging of any claim. The session ends with several minutes of a Flappy Bird game that is entirely dead weight.
I've been on the design and product side for the, the majority of my career, and I've only just started getting into understanding marketing and sales, uh, you know, over the last 18 months or so
Are you ready to play some tap to flat?
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
Optimizing business partnerships can bring top-of-the-funnel leads to the bottom. Tammy McDonald, a channel enablement expert, shares her expertise on how to effectively establish and nurture partner relationships Tammy explains how and why enablement is key to partnership success. In this episode: Key tips on how to avoid common mistakes that kill channel relationships How to get your IPP (Ideal Partner Profile) right on the first try Bridge the gap between sales and marketing
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Speaker A: Foreign.
Speaker B: Okay. Welcome to the show. Today we have Tammy McDonald. She's an experienced channel leader that started in sales, moved up to sales leadership, and transitioned completely over to marketing. So she's seen both sides and makes her the perfect channel enablement expert. Tammy, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Speaker A: Thanks so much for having me here, Andrew. I'm looking forward to this chat.
Speaker B: Me, too. So when we first got connected, you said, I put enablement above everything else, and I love that. A lot of what we do is support channel reps with enablement. Can you dive into that? Uh, why do you put enablement first? What does that mean to you?
Speaker A: Well, I like to use analogies sometimes. Um, and in this case, if I said to someone that we were going to take a football team, put them on the field, throw the playbook at them without any training, and expect them to win, score touchdowns, people would be like, what? What's wrong with you? There's a whole selection process that goes behind getting those players and training those players and putting them in the right place on the field to do what needs to be done. So when we look at the channel and we look at the partner ecosystem and we even break it down further and look at what solution are you selling or trying to sell, and making sure that you're matching the right partners with your solution and making sure you're enabling them so we can go out, we can recruit and get contracts signed. But what does that mean once those contracts are signed? Yeah, we want to work together. Well, what happens next? So, um, partners are an extension of our sales team, so they should be treated exactly the same. You know, that, that same. When you consider you hire new sales people for your company, you wouldn't put them in front of prospects and expect them to sell without properly training them. So, and I'm, you know, I've seen it on both sides of the fence from sales and marketing, and it's that, you know, magic that you have to find in the middle where you're. You've recruited the right partners and now you're onboarding them and you're training them. But before you start throwing the playbooks at them, you've got to train them and give them the tools that they need to be trained so that they can sell.
Speaker B: You know, it makes perfect sense. And I think we've probably heard that logical progression before, but it's not what always happens, and it's probably not what happens most of the time. You know, what do you see that companies are really getting wrong or what Are the most common mistakes where, you know, steps are just missed?
Speaker A: Well, I think what happens is that it's that typical problem where we have sales is working over here and marketing is working over here. Right. So sales is working super hard. They're finding the partners, they're signing the contracts. Okay, great, let's go sell. And then marketing's working over here, creating all the tools and the playbooks and building the most amazing partner portal ever with all the most amazing things. Oh, well, whoops, where's the lms? So if you don't have an LMS that's built into your portal, and if you don't have, um, a continuum that kind of logically progresses from onboarding those partners to getting those partners to sell, you're missing that magic in the middle where the enablement happens. Um, and that's critical. And what I've seen over and over is that we have people, that we get all the contracts signed, we're excited, we have a partner, and then go in the portal. All the tools are there. We need to have more constant engagement step by step. We need to hold their hands. And once the contract is signed, the work is just starting. So contract, uh, gets signed. Let's break down the training. Let's set milestones. What kind of training comes first? There's technical training, there's the business training, there's different language, there's different values along the way, and, and there's an understanding that needs to be around. How are we going to make money? Because that's the only reason why partners that's the only reason why partners want to partner with you. Right? Because they're going to make money. And the only reason we want partners or a company wants partners is because they're an extension of our sales team and they're going to make us money. So unless both sides clearly understand what that is and how that's going to happen, you can sign all the contracts you want, build the most amazing partner portals, and nothing's going to happen.
Speaker B: Absolutely. And one of the things we see disjointed, uh, in, or a misunderstanding with partner portals and that whole partner journey is that sometimes it's just one piece that's missing or there's one piece that's one degree off and that's creating a roadblock for everything else. And I think I've been on the design and product side for the, the majority of my career, and I've only just started getting into understanding marketing and sales, uh, you know, over the last 18 months or so. And the thing that was shocking to me was just how much uh, you know, I have to say the thing that I thought was self evident or I thought was implied, or I thought everybody understood and breaking down a message. Um, and something that stood out to me, you know, from our intro conversation was you're talking so much about the why and you just mentioned it there. And you know, before we dive into anything that you need to know about our products, the very first thing you need to know is why. Why are you selling it? What does it mean to you? How can it help your customers? How is it going to help you in the long term? And I think that was a big takeaway for me from our intro conversation was, man, that's one piece that I never see, uh, in, in, in an lms, you know, and that's really lesson one is, is that why? Um, but I also think that uh, you can, you can. Again, going back to my design background, you can map out this journey of how a partner is onboard at each step and you can see very easily where people are dropping off, where there's a sticking point. And uh, you know, I used to joke all the time, running the design studio is like, we don't, you know, we don't, uh, we don't find the answers, uh, or we don't know the answers. We help you find the answers, you know, and how much of our work and value we added was literally just looking where people were confused and saying, hey, we're, why are you confused? And then listening and so fine tuning those pieces of the puzzle can go such a long way. Uh, it's interesting because it does seem to be such a common problem. Do you have any tips or tricks on uh, you know, how to start breaking down that training journey? Because, uh, I've seen it in so many different ways. Long ones, short ones, many chapters, long journey. You know, it's complex and based totally, uh, you know, on each individual situation. But I was curious if there are any themes or ideas or, you know, kind of north stars you have when you dive into creating that, that training, uh, journey.
Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. Um, you know, what I've seen, what I've seen in the past is where you create training that just dives right into the features and the functions and it just goes right into the product. Talks about all the things that the product does, but it doesn't say what the product's going to do for you. So in terms of training, I think it's really critical to have, you know, that sales level training where the value Proposition is clearly articulated and going beyond that and having that value proposition articulated into uh, a day in the life of uh. So if you're selling to several different verticals, it's great to have that high level value proposal. But what does it mean for each one of the verticals and what value does it deliver? How does it change life and make life easier for. And getting really specific into the use cases. And then the other side of it is the technical rollout of the product and having the training and the value behind that. Um, you hear a lot of uh, jargon out there where fastest time to roi. Well, what does that mean? How many man hours are you saving? Is it easily integrated? Why? Tell me why, Tell me how and what does that translate into? Um, so in terms of setting up the training, you want to make sure that you're speaking to the ideal partner profile and you might have several. And then, um, in addition to that, that other layer comes in. What does the business user care about in the company? What does the technical user care about in the company? And put those streams in and then introduce the features and the functions as they relate to a particular vertical. Because otherwise you're just being generic and you're talking way too high level. And you gotta remember all of these partners have so many vendors knocking on their door promising the same thing, you're gonna make money, roi. You know, all of these things get specific and speak to their why and why they need to understand. I mean, Simon Sinek didn't have it all wrong when he started with that very basic concept, right? So that's the thing. And we talk about ideal partner profiles and then we talk about Personas. Um, but understanding your IPP before you dive into the Persona and really drilling into the ideal partner profile from both a technical and a sales standpoint, before you start getting into the Personas, make sure you have the IPP right, otherwise you're not going to connect.
Speaker B: Makes a lot of sense. And the lesson that uh, I've had to learn is that specificity. You know, you mentioned you got to be specific. I didn't know what that meant until I actually experienced it myself. You know, I had whittled down some messaging to like three things. You know, we help customer X with or, you know, customer A with X, Y and Z. And I got blank stares. And then it was like, we help customer X with or customer A with X and it was like click. Everyone understood, you know, and so when you're uh, listening for pain points and want to suggest solutions, you know, two Pain points is too many, really.
Speaker A: One is what gets the conversation relevant and personalized. Everybody is so inundated with everything these days. You can't walk out of your house with somebody trying to sell to you your inbox every, like everywhere you go. We can't even go online without an ad popping in our. We're constantly inundated. So the more specific and the more personalized, you're going to be more relevant. And then that's really where, you know, the pedal hits the metal or whatever that phrase is.
Speaker B: So I think that makes sense. I mean. Well, I mean it definitely makes sense, but personalized, custom fitting the training to the exact partner, the exact use case, that makes, uh, perfect sense to me. If you can't do it all, you know, a lot of us have many different partner types solve many different pain points. How do you know where to start? How do you prioritize?
Speaker A: Um, well, you know, again, getting so specific around. You can't be everyone to every. Everything to everyone. So knowing the value of your product or your service or, you know, whatever it is you're trying to put through the channel, know exactly what that value is and then define that and see where it matches up with the partner ecosystem. So don't try and recruit every single type of partner if they're not all relevant to what that value prop is that you're selling. So, you know, we see it all the time where there's a partner program where everybody's welcome, you know, and yeah, that's great, everybody's welcome. But are you making money? Are you driving revenue? Are you, are you growing, Growing the business, growing sales. So, um, understanding, you know, maybe your product or your service only fits one layer of the ecosystem. Define who they are and go after them. And be specific. Um, because everybody's too afraid of losing a piece of the pie. Well, you're not going to get any of the pie if you're trying to be everyone to everyone, you know, jack of all trades, master of none. So get specific, know what your value is and deliver that personalized message to those partners and make it relevant. Um, and then you'll get the engagement. And once you have that engagement, be consistent. Don't just sign them up and throw them in a portal. Sign them up and have a continuum of training where that training starts with high level. Here, you know, here's the product basics, here's the value prop, and then break it down and make it relevant to their market.
Speaker B: Great. So that hyper, uh, focus and specificity. We've talked a little Bit about the training, how to break it down, the why comes first. There's a little gap there which is going from identifying your ideal partner and getting them trained. Onboarding, what is. I've defined my partner profile. If I'm going to, you know, start or restart, um, our, our program or how do I go from defining that profile and finding those partners and starting the onboarding? Can you walk me through those steps?
Speaker A: Yeah. Um, you know, once you, once you have that list of those ideal partner profiles and you start reaching out to them with a third thoughtful, clear, personalized message and you get the engagement rolling once that contract is signed, then you put that continuum of milestones in place right from the beginning. Okay, we sign a contract. So within a week of signing the contract, we need a planning session on the calendar. Within the first 30 days we're going to put a plan together in terms of who are we targeting for net new and where's the account based marketing coming from? Very specific. And again, having those regular checkpoints and as you go through each of those regular checkpoints, the resources needed for those partners are going to become very apparent and there's going to be a lot of things that they need before we just give them a playbook out of the portal or some solution sheets or what have you. So holding their hand, putting that business plan in place around here are the sales goals, here's the marketing activities, and this is, this is really basic stuff that we forget to do. Um, you know, so just again treating them as though they're because they are a part of our sales team and sitting down with them and making a plan, setting dates for regular QBRs, a year long plan, regular QBRs, regular checkpoints, you know, accountability checkpoints, all of those things. Um, and then when you get to a place with a partner where a lot of people are afraid to do this right, you get to a place with a partner and there's a lot of talk and there's not a lot of action happening. Now I'm going to use another analogy. A lot of people aren't afraid to call things off in the dating world if things aren't progressing. So when your partners aren't progressing and moving to the next level and you're not making any revenue and nothing's happening, are you just going to kind of keep them around or do you get to a point where, you know, in order for this relationship to move forward, X, Y and Z needs to happen. But we see a lot of those inefficiencies in the channel where we're so hopeful that we've got some engagement happening and the prospect of. But the results aren't there. And consistently over and over we're missing the mark, we're not getting the results, but yet we continue to invest time. So when we look at enablement overall, as soon as that contract is signed and you're doing your part in terms of staying engaged, offering the right tools at the right time. Um, because we always get into this dance where the partners are coming to us and they want to sell to our customers, but we want to sell to their customers. So, so you get into this dance back and forth where um, okay, you show me yours and I'll show you mine and then, you know, so that's why it's critical once that contract is signed to have some very specific milestones. So within a week of that contract being signed, we should have uh, you know, a strategic planning session on the calendar that leads to a quarterly plan that is rolling up into an overall year plan. And there's, there's commitment skin in the game on both sides. You know, that's a whole other story, you know, with marketing, development funds and having access to that and, and co marketing and all of those things to help build the business on both sides. Um, but the idea here is that when we're working with partners, if we're working with the right ones, there'll be a clear path, the right tools at the right time, and that funnel will get filled from bottom to, from, from the top to the bottom of the funnel. So we're not just going to have a whole bunch of leads floating around at the top that maybe, maybe they're qualified. Not sure. But it looks like we're getting some activity done because we're talking all the time. So we got it. When we're onboarding those partners, we, it's important that we have specific timelines and milestones, um, and checkpoints along the way. And um, you know, it works on both sides because you have to give the partners the right tools at the right time. But you also have to. This goes back to the ipp. If you're working with the right partner and you've qualified them properly, then you're going to see the results and the top of funnel activities are going to make their way down to growth.
Speaker B: I love it. And uh, you know, uh, my takeaway is, is charting the journey. And that's something we do in design all the time. It's something that we see success with our uh, incentive programs because we're always giving that next step. And it's so obvious, but so many calls end with nothing scheduled next. So many, uh, partner portals, you log in and it's just everything. Well, I don't want everything. I want to know what I need to do next or I want something very specific. And so user experience and the journey, uh, becomes very, very important. You know, one of the hardest things to do in UX is just create a good information hierarchy. That's hard with a simple business in any market. It is so hard in the technology world with complex products and trainings and all this stuff. And you have to put uh, a stake in the ground, say this is our journey for our partners. And of course you're gonna learn from uh, iteration and it's going to evolve over time, but you need to be that leader, uh, for your partners. And I can see this theme of a designated journey going through your advice for uh, every step of the way in enablement.
Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: So let's see here. Getting that first conversation started, starting that meaningful conversation you said just a couple minutes ago, people are inundated. We know that firsthand. We're trying to get sellers, uh, attention all the time at Incentive Pilot. You know, the data we've seen are that these sellers easily have 100 new emails a day, um, from their organization, from partners, from prospects, from customers. Who knows what else is going on. The vast majority of those emails are either straight up marketing that gets ignored because it's full of jargon or uh, it's an email with 55 bullet points. And it's like no one is going to read all of that. So I was curious, what are your thoughts about ways to stand out in the inbox? Uh, what do you see? What have you seen that that really works?
Speaker A: You know, you got to know your audience. And um, I've seen on my own personal experience where I'm getting emails saying, oh, since you work for a fintech company, never worked for a fintech company in my life. Um, and I'm like, wow, like research. Know your audience that goes back to the ipp, understand who you're talking to and what matters to them, understand if it's a lead with a business conversation or a technical conversation and then make it relevant to, to their audience, their customers. So I think that um, and aside from that, the reality is that everyone is getting inundated in their, their email, their LinkedIn. Um, I think for a lot of people it's to the point of frustration and annoyance because you just, it's too much and we barely have Time to keep up with our relevant emails for our day to day. Uh, so I think, you know, if you're going the path which most, most people, we need to start there for the most part with budgets and so on to, to send that email, but make it thoughtful, make it personal, make it relevant. And two or three points like, we don't, nobody's gonna read, you know. Um, and I think the other side of the coin that we want to really be aware of is that um, since 2020 happened and we were all on um, lockdown for a couple of years, now that the world is opening up again, um, I've seen at most m, like most recent industry events that I've, I've been at because it's our first time out in a while. People are really more engaged in having those meaningful conversations. So definitely my advice is get out to those industry conferences. Uh, before 2020 happened, we saw a shift where people were kind of moving away from events and conferences because the high cost. Um, now post 2020, I think people are looking at it through a different lens because we want to be in front of people again and again. I think that comes from wanting to make it personalized. Um, just the shift that's happened, you know, professionally as well as personally, people are now just like, okay, I want to get in front of people and have meaningful conversations. Uh, so, you know, I think that, sure, send the emails, keep it thoughtful, personalized, relevant, get to the industry events and really make use of those networking events. But know your IPP and know their why and why you're talking to them, why it's relevant, make it personalized. Um, and then the other part of it is get creative and think outside the box. Um, now's a great time I think, to give hard mailers a try. And there's some trick, there's some trickiness there because because of the remote community of work that we have now, um, and we can't really get people's home addresses, but most companies do have, we've opened things up enough now that there's enough presence in, in you know, the on site of the office that you can send, you know, a hard mailer to get somebody's interest. So I think that the things that we started walking away from pre2020, we need to start revisiting those just because 2020 kind of catapulted us, uh, 10 years in advance of the digital, the whole digital transformation. But at the same time now there's this need for um, that personal connection. So going back maybe and you know, I remember back in, um, my distributor days where we would have these huge events and do mailers before the event, come by our booth, come see us, see if your car, you know, sending a key, see if the, see if the ignition starts and um, you win a prize. So having those kind of fun things, um, and revisiting that is definitely an option, but definitely, um, make sure you're relevant in your message.
Speaker B: I love those ideas and I think you're right on. We have talked about being catapulted into an age of virtualization. Uh, and the flip side of that is that, okay, if we zoomed ahead 10 years, well then it's perfectly logical that we also zoomed ahead to craving the old way things were done. So I love that idea of going physical, switching it up. Um, you know, one of the one thing I would add, uh, because I'm 100% on board with you in terms of those industry events, you know, an idea I had after I, uh, went to a big conference and it was kind of hard to connect with people during the day. Not all the sessions were great. Um, and then happy hour rolled around and you know, more business was being done there, uh, than anything in the three day conference. Uh, what I started doing, asking the people who've been to the event before and say, hey, where do people really congregate? Or what was the big hit last year? Um, because showing up important and you can get those meaningful conversations. But even getting more intel about where, you know, what is really the main attraction or what really, um, you know, people are excited about can be really helpful to kind of optimize your time at uh, an event and uh, know
Speaker A: who's going to be there, know who, know who's going to be at the event. So again you're going into the event with a plan and a target of uh, I know these people are my ideal partner profiles. This is what matters to them. Know what you're going to say, plan it out, know who you're going to target, know how, know how you're going to get the conversation going. Um, I think what happened in the past is that these events were just kind of rinse, wash and repeat, um, and now with digital transfer transformation, fast forward forwarding everything and everyone being inundated digitally for a live human to walk up to you and say something relevant to your business and engage in that meaningful conversation. Um, again, just do, do your homework and know who you need to talk to and what you're going to say to them and make sure what you say is going to matter to them
Speaker B: and you'll learn quickly. If you think you know what you're going to say and it's not resonating, you'll learn quick, quickly so you can pivot and try one of your other.
Speaker A: You'll always get people's attention with something very specific where, wow, this person has taken the time and thought and consideration as opposed to coming in with your usual, hey, how are you? Water cooler, generic, kind of, you know, just filling the air sort, so to speak. Right. So just know your audience, know who you want to talk to and what you need to say to them. Um,
Speaker B: great advice. So obviously we've talked about defining that partner, getting them onboarding, setting clear checkpoints along the way and enabling them uh, so they can start selling. Enablement, you know, is, is an ongoing process. Um, what, what can you tell us about uh, you know, maintenance in terms of uh, managing new trainings, getting it pushed out. How do you work that into your original plan? I would just love to hear your thoughts, uh, or uh, you know, some of your, some of your experience on keeping things going over time.
Speaker A: One of the key things to keeping things going over time is ensuring that um, on both sides of the company, with, on both sides, that executive leadership is bought into the value of the partnership because that will help the consistency and driving things forward. When you've got buy in from both sides in terms of we need to work together because there's a real value here and this is why, how, and answering all those questions, when you've got commitment kind of top down, um, you know, that's going to push things forward and you know, anytime we're working on any sort of project where senior leadership has their eye on it, you know, and they're going to be checking in, you bet it's going to keep moving forward. So those partnerships, um, when you're connecting with partners and they're the right partners and you've got support from investment with time, resources and all the other stuff that's going to help those regular check points and hold people accountable in the QBRs, um, and identify what's working, what's not working, what are the roadblocks? Can we get support on both sides of the fence here to help us overcome those roadblocks? Um, yeah, just keeping each other honest.
Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's a great point about executive buy in. Um, is there an example you have of maybe when the buy in wasn't there, what you did to earn it back or how you keep it on track or Prevent it from going off track.
Speaker A: Well, that just goes back to what I was saying earlier, right? Like ask the tough question questions. Even if, you know, sometimes we avoid asking the tough questions because we don't want to hear the answers. And we're so hopeful that things are going to make a turn. But then what that gets us into the situation of is, you know, really just spinning our wheels and not having the partnership progress. Um, and in some cases, if it's not a priority at that time, then it's not a priority at that time. And you know, we put, we, we put that on hold and, and uh, we put our resources and our time into the where, where it's mutually beneficial and there's, there's, you know, we've both got stake in the game on, on both sides sort of thing. So that, that part of it is really like, ask the hard question. And if now is not the time and if it's not a priority for both sides, you know, there's no, there's no sense in trying to make something happen that's not going to happen. Um,
Speaker B: so, yeah, that's great advice. Tammy, is there anything else related to enablement you think you have a unique take on or would be great to share with our audience?
Speaker A: I think the biggest thing for me is, um, you know, I built out my first partner portal about, uh, gosh, about this. Well, no, 15 or 16 years ago. And, um, we got so laser focused on building out all of the marketing supports and we didn't work tightly with sales. So as it relates to, um, enablement, it's key that marketing and sales work hand in hand. Um, I've had in, in terms of. When I, when I look back over my career where I've had the most success, it's when I've worked lockstep with the sales leaders. And on the flip side, when I was in sales, it was because I was right beside the marketing folks saying, no, no, like, this is what I need for, like, this is what our partners need. And this. Here's, here's the motion, here's the process, so on and so forth. Um, so as it relates to building out the partner portals and making sure, you know, sometimes it looks like this sales is here, marketing is here with the partner portals, and LMS is kind of in the middle, floating around, all of that needs to be kind of gelled together. That onboarding process needs to be super clear from, you know, okay, we've got these partners coming down the pipeline. We're signing these contracts now. They're going into enablement, which hopefully there's a LMS system that's sitting in the portal. Um, all of it needs to be integrated so that sales is super clear on where they need to go, where they need to bring the partners. So they've got their onboarding path, but it's really clear for sales to know where to find everything that they need and where to point their partners to. When we onboard our partner, their onboarding kit should be super simple and straightforward, and the steps should be really made. Made clear. Step one, two, three. Like, as basic as that sounds, it's, you know, here, here's, you know, taking a look at overall the training, and we're going to make you successful, Mr. Partner. Right. And this is how we're going to do that. So it's important that sales and marketing work closely and if there's a separate enablement team, because you see that sometimes in the larger companies with the training, training is more directed to the, um, employee audience and onboarding the new employees. Um, ideally the LMS would have, you know, three audiences. Partners and employees and customers. Right. So we typically want to put our end users through training. We typically want our, um, partners as well as our new employees coming through. So we want to make sure that all that messaging is connected, consistent, but with the personalization for each one of those audiences. So at the end of the day, it's having that clear, consistent path and milestones to hit along the way and, um, knowing when to put the partnership on hold if it's not progressing.
Speaker B: Man, so much great info. I appreciate you, uh, sharing your enablement expertise. Um, are you ready to play some tap to flat?
Speaker A: I'm gonna try my best.
Speaker B: All right, so I'm gonna ask you to share your screen and pull up the game. I'm gonna get a timer going for one minute. So you have 60 seconds to get the highest score you can. Okay, we'll get the timer going right now. Go. Go ahead and click and keep flapping. M. Oh, so close. Oh, just a little bit less on that one.
Speaker A: I know. It's like. I've lost.
Speaker B: You got plenty of time to get your mojo back. Just 35 seconds to go. There you go.
Speaker A: I knew I could.
Speaker B: You're on the board.
Speaker A: I'm on the board. Hey.
Speaker B: Oh, so close. 15 seconds left. Three, two. Uh, okay. Well, thank you for indulging us. You are the seventh guest on Enterprise. I've also score of one. But hey, you're on the board.
Speaker A: At least I got on the board. I'm gonna I think I'm gonna, um, now lose half my weekend.
Speaker B: It is very addictive.
Speaker A: It seems a little addictive.
Speaker B: It is very addictive. It's one of the reasons it works great for production partner engagement, getting them to, uh, getting their eyeballs on some trainings and enablement. If you don't have that clearly charted path, um, incentive pilot can be a great tool to, uh, get some attention on new trainings or any activity you're trying to drive with, uh, partner sellers. Anyway, Tammy, thank you so much for coming on and sharing what you know. If someone wants to get in touch with you, what's the best place to reach out?
Speaker A: Probably the best place is just reach out through LinkedIn.
Speaker B: All right, well, we'll share, uh, your link when episode goes live. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Speaker A: Hey, and just a final thought. You know, we sent that link out to the partners that we want to engage with. That could work because it's very addictive. It just leaves you wanting to get some more points on the board.
Speaker B: Love it. That's exactly.
Speaker A: That'd be a unique email. Not everyone is sending that out.
Speaker B: It's true. It is true.
Speaker A: Try to message their business somehow and you're all set.
Speaker B: Awesome. Well, I'm glad you think so. Uh, hopefully you'll come on in the future and share more what you learned.
Speaker A: I'd love to be back. Thanks so much for having me.
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