303: Practical Partnership - Advice For Building Partnerships at PIpedream with Will Taylor

Host: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the 20% podcast. This is the show that brings you tips and tricks from industry professionals across all industries that you could implement in your current job today. And I'm so excited. We're going to get right into it today with my friend Will Taylor. He is going to be talking over, you know, if you don't know Will, he is a my go to in the partnership space, you know, uh, thinking about, you know, building out my, uh, Rolodex of professionals across all of these different areas. And Will is that person for partnerships. And the fun thing today is we're going to be talking about all things partnerships, specifically in the context of building our partnership program here at Pipe Dream. Now, just to give everybody a little bit more context, before I let Will jump in and start talking, Will and I were just chatting for the about 25 minutes or so, going over what we've built, what, uh, what we've gone through so far. So he could be more familiarized with what's happened, uh, with the company where partnerships are coming in and some of the things that we've built already. Um, so some of our big focus areas are going to be, um, today talking about the ideal partner profile. Who are those people that we're going to be, uh, who we're trying to go after and what's included there, what onboarding looks like in the context of we're just starting this program. What does that initial onboarding phase look like, as well as, um, then going in and building out, like, what are your partner pages look like? And finally, as well, focusing on how you're holding your time and being held accountable for where you're focusing, because we could sprawl out and we could just keep building, building, building, but it may not actually, uh, achieve our goals. So without further ado, I am so happy to be chatting again with my friend Will Taylor. Will, welcome to the show.

Will Taylor: Tyler, thank you for, for having me. I'm excited to dive in and, uh, I've, you know, looking at what you've already built, it, uh, looks great. And I like the focus that you've had on overall customer value and validation. Um, so I think you're one in the right direction, two in the right spot, and you are the guy for the job. So, uh, let's make you even more successful today.

Host: Very good, very good. And some of the things that we were talking about before, um, we were jumping in, and I think it's really, uh, when you're talking about being the guy for the job, Partnerships is not something, I think a lot of people traditionally see partnerships on this like, island where it's not actually associated with the overall focus on what the org has done or where they've actually seen success in the business. And I think that's one of the interesting areas here, um, with pipe dream is that we already have, ah, a lot of success with customers and using the product, but now we're bolting this partnerships into the existing revenue function. So will, I know it's a big focus before we start talking about pipe dreams specifically. Um, but tell me a little bit more about that of like, why you see partnerships not aligning with revenue essentially and where teams should really focus before we jump right in with some, some more of the tactical.

Will Taylor: Yeah, so partnerships has been unfortunately painted as you, the like, steak dinner, uh, team where you take your partners out for a steak dinner, you have some good conversations and then people are like, I don't know what they're doing, but they're, you know, adding some value. But we can't fully quantify it. The reason for that is most partner teams, uh, are, you know, if I use an analogy to describe it, the revenue team is on a train and they're headed in a specific direction. The partner team is in a different area. They're smelting the rods of a new track, hammering it in themselves and trying to course correct where they're trying to do things like create a mindset shift for the sellers or they are trying to implement a new process that people simply don't have the skills for. And so there's this disconnect of, yeah, well, we know that it can be valuable for the business and we see the strategic impact that it can have. But when it comes to brass tacks, you know, our SDRs, our sellers, they, they don't know how to bring up partners in conversations. And so the solution to that is partner teams need to be better aligned with the existing rev ops function within an organization where instead of trying to course correct the train, they are instead adding fuel to the existing revenue train so that there is no misstep, there is no skipping a beat. It is in stride with everything else that they're doing. And there's a lot of opportunity from a data perspective and a process perspective to make that happen. Uh, partner teams just need to become better focused on the operations and align more with the core revenue metrics. Uh, because, you know, most partner teams are held accountable for sourced revenue and sourced pipeline from partners, which is okay, but that's kind of like at the end of the marketing and sales and rev ops, you know, engine that's already going, it's, hey, here's a meeting, we got an introduction. So great. You know, we are building that pipeline, but the partner influence happens top of funnel all the way through to customer signing and onboarding and realizing value. And for a partner team to effectively say, here's the value that we're contributing, they don't have the data across the business to identify how it's being impactful. It's just the ad hoc meetings, effectively that can be made through partners, which again, is a very small slice of the puzzle when in reality partners span across the entire business. So in summary, partner teams need to better align with RevOps, understand the tech stack, implement partner data and uh, be fuel for the engine instead of trying to course correct and change behavior.

Host: Yeah, absolutely. I mean we're, we're all on the same team here. And to your point, like it just blows my mind why teams wouldn't, wouldn't want to just align to what's already being successful. Because again, why, why recreate the wheel when the wheel's already there? Let's just try to align and get back on the tracks to go back to your, uh, to make sure everybody's in the same direction.

Will Taylor: Yeah. And there is some wheel creation as well for partner teams. And I think that's why, like, they, they do have to create a lot. They have to build a lot. And so, you know, that's the challenge. They may build too much and then they're now building their own island and then they're over there. So, uh, yeah, different for what you're doing though. So.

Host: Absolutely, absolutely. And that's, and that's why I was really so excited because, um, to your point, you know, coming into Pipe Dream, we, they've already started seeing some, you know, some teams traditionally are going to go back and say, hey, hey, we want to start this partner program from zero, and we don't know where to start. There's all different things. However, what we noticed at Pipe Dream and why the role was created for me as well is that some of our revenue, uh, leaders and our founding group saw that there's a need where people are raising their hand and asking to be partners. So there's already, already some type of informal partner process where I'm coming in to help informalize that process. And that's why, to Will's point, and this is why we're having the conversation to focus on, hey, you know, because we're focusing on like, like trying to build out all these partner resources and jumping in and all these things where like you may, you, you may want to build that over time. But to start, and to start getting value and to start really trying to drive early revenue, that it's more about focusing your time and really being in, in, in being focused there too. Now let's jump into the ideal partner profile. Now. One of the things that, uh, one of the big things that I did coming into pipe dream was sit down and talk to all the groups and understand what is, what is happening right now from a partner perspective, what's the value even before partners taking a step back, what is the value of the tool and how do we actually help people so that we could align our ideal partner profile. Much like customers have an icp, it's really important to have an ideal partner profile as well. So we can understand who are those people that we're talking to, how are we going to help them, why is that important? And then really breaking down all of the areas of why is this important for the client? Why is this, how is this beneficial for the partner? And then, then as a result, as Will was just getting into what is the value that we as the, the company are going to receive as well. And so many people are only focused on what's that value that we're going to have, which is an outcome of all of those other, other, other things. So that's why it's really important to focus on that whole holistic picture. So Will, I know I already went through some of the ideal partner profile, um, for us, but tell me a little bit more about some of your feedback and even uh, adding some context, uh, for listeners if they um, if it's needed there as well.

Will Taylor: Yeah, very quick context on like what you did to build the process was identified. Um, what is the win for customers first and foremost, because if you ever engage a partner and there's no customer value, it's useless. Uh, it's just theory and maybe you and your partner agree, but it's not going to do anything for anybody, uh, at the end of the day. And so what's the value to customers? Great. That's what we're focused on. That's why we're partnering. That's everything that we will try to achieve is giving the customer that specific thing that we determine and then determining, well, why is that also valuable to the partner and then valuable to us, which again leads you to your KPIs that can be impacted. So as an example, um, working with Agencies, generally, agencies don't have a high volume of clients. Um, so you either need to have a high volume of agencies, which is really hard to manage because they require a lot of enablement, or you can instead focus on, okay, well, this is going to deliver customer value. So let's build a robust engine that looks at the customer stories that we get with the agencies and the different use cases and the stickiness that is now with that client because of their work with the agency. So it's definitely, you know, if we think of a buyer's bow tie journey, it's on the right side after purchase that they will generally apply more value because that's where they're delivering their services and winning and that's where the partner cares, uh, and where eventually the client gets the value. Still some benefit to generating revenue, but it's probably not going to be as high volume as you'd expect. So there's a really good example of if you as a partner person are held accountable for sourcing revenue, agencies might not be the best focus. Now, they're a very valuable focus, but at the end of the day, you need to focus on what's valuable to you and your role and what you're held accountable for. So, you know, not only should you care about customer value, but what does your company care about and what are they holding you accountable for? Great. That should inform the type of partner that you work with. And essentially this will give you the buckets of partners the type of value that they can generate and then that'll inform joint message value and start to give you these pockets of, okay, well, this is the type of partner we engage at, uh, this part of the buyer's journey and so on. So what I liked about what you created was you did start with the customer and you also looked at your existing client base to identify, well, where do we already have partners who are either raising their hand and, or who are what we've identified in our theoretical process of what we want a partner to be. Do they fit that profile? How many customers already fit that profile? They already know about your business. They're already seeing value. The translation of that value will be much quicker. So starting there is golden. Uh, that is the number one thing that everyone should do. Interview your clients, look at your client base, build some form of profile, and then match that profile with your client base to identify those accounts. Um, and then you'll be in a really good spot to have very valuable conversations that are not cold. And you can get a lot of either validation or at least feedback on some of your ideas. And one of the things that I saw that you put in there to help with that validation process, and although you put it in, in the onboarding and enablement section, I would do this in the first or second call. Even if you haven't agreed to be partners, which is what does that agency actually care about, uh, what services are they delivering? If it's, you know, a sales and marketing agency and they create content and your tool is, you know, uh, helps developers and helps connecting systems, they may not care that much because they deliver services around content. They may, you know, eventually deliver some services around what you do. But if they're not publicly sharing it on their website and pitching it in their quotes and pitch deck, then it's not going to include you. And uh, you know, the value interaction between you and the partner is going to be mismatched. So getting those quotes and really understanding what your partner delivers to clients is, is very crucial. And uh, to translate this through the idea of like a sales process, during the qualification process, you should ask a lot of these qualifying questions to really make sure you're taking care of the partner and uh, essentially leading with the fact that they will only extract value if they already want to deliver things around the service that your company also delivers. So part of the qualification process, you know, give yourself a standard set of qualifying questions. When you do get on the phone with these partners, one of those things is what services do you deliver? Let's take a look at the actual things. If you could find anything beforehand, then grab that and bring that to the call, um, and then validate. And the reason for this and the reason that you should take lead is because every partner or, you know, 99 of partners, and especially in the interactions I've had, they want to partner. They think this is opportunity. Oh, this company's approaching me, this is opportunity. I might get exposure to their, their client base. But if they don't actually have the ability to realize value and see the path to value, that excitement will very quickly dwindle and no one will take action because they're not going to be motivated. So um, the, the feedback I would give is from everything you've created and all the, you know, uh, partner profile overlapping with the customers that you have and figuring out who you can speak to, um, if you don't have it already, create those qualifying questions, get very specific and uh, again, think of it as setting very, very clear expectations and communicating very clearly, uh, that you want it to be valuable for them. And that it needs to be or else they're not going to take action. And that will allow you to draw the line very specifically. And, uh, you know, I'm actually, it's. It's funny that this is coming up, and maybe it's coming up because I read it recently, but I'm reading this book called the Speed of Trust. And one of the behaviors to develop trust is to. They call it talk straight, which is to be, uh, direct and honest. Um, not necessarily blunt and, you know, like, bulldoze somebody, but, like, be direct, be honest. And that's going to develop trust. So having respect for them, being direct, asking these kinds of qualifying questions. Hey, our program is new. Uh, I see that you deliver this kind of service. That tells me that there's probably value here. Um, like, I don't want to waste your time. I'm asking these questions to make sure that you're going to get value and that you're motivated. Uh, let's come to an agreement that, you know, this would be valuable. Like that kind of directness. You know, it sounds easy to say now in, you know, a theoretical conversation, but at the end of the day, that's going to, one, drive a lot of trust, two, validate a lot, and three, either qualify in or out a lot quicker. Of. Is there value in us both spending time here? Because again, I will hammer this point, and I've brought it up multiple times. I'm saying it again to wrap up this, uh, this part. Uh, people will be excited to partner. Every idea is a good idea to a partner until it comes time to execute, and then attrition happens very quickly. And it's one of the biggest traps that partner people face.

Host: That's such, uh, a great point. And two, the partnerships are truly two ways back and forth. Right? Because we want to. We obviously want to partner with this group because we think, we believe, again, the theory. We, we should see how many times we said theory, because this is going to lead into my next question. Um, but, you know, like, in theory, every, like, everybody wants to want. Like, yeah, this is great. This is awesome. Let's share our list back and forth. We could see what we could do, and then nothing happens. Right? So, you know, two. You know, I, I love how you were highlighting the. Making sure that we are very focused on what are. What is it that we're actually, um, trying to do. Qualifying out if they aren't a good person. And you, uh, know, give a shout out to Danny Archer on this. Um, my, Our head of revenue here he will straight up say, in all honesty, you're probably not the best person, that you're not our typical person that we partner with, whereas, and then explain out where that partnership really is. Because you may be able to find some mutual value somewhere else, but maybe it's not in that specific area. But again, um, you know, on the theory side, what are some of the biggest pitfalls to avoid when you're taking the like. Whether it's from these beginning intros of like, you know, we're theorizing what this partner could look like in that ideal partner profile versus going in and theorizing with that partner, can this be a good fit? What are some of the other big pitfalls to avoid when we're, we're trying to make that shift from testing these theories and putting it into practice?

Will Taylor: Uh, I would say because partnerships is so wide and strategic and there's like so much to do and so much impact that it can have, uh, analysis paralysis is very much so a thing. So not only is there time spent developing the theory, um, there's obviously time needed to validate the theory. Um, people probably are doing less validation and like action taking than they may think. Uh, you know, oh, we had three conversations with different agencies and we got this feedback you should be spending. I, I usually tell people when they're developing their ideal partner profile, like, you shouldn't spend more than 30 to 60 minutes on it to create some buckets, create this profile, do a bit of an overlap, and then you should be immediately having conversations with these organizations, um, and like constantly having these or these conversations with these organizations. And one of the, uh, other folks in the partnerships industry who I highly recommend, you know, people follow. His name's Chris Lavoie. He runs Ecosystem University. So he has like a course and everything that uh, that you can take. Uh, I trust Chris. I've done some work with him. And one of the things that he's done in the past with his teams is he's tracked the total number of meetings with partners, uh, with the partner managers that he has on his team. And there is a correlation of the number of meetings that are held with partners. So live organic conversations that translates into hard results of revenue generated. Lots of reasons why it helps keep you top of mind, gives, uh, you more FaceTime so you can have better validation and feedback. Um, but I would say it's because it's this focus on action versus theory. Because again, let's say you're three months, six months into your program and you're like Great. You know, we've, we've had conversations. Now it's time to build the onboarding program and develop some more theory. Again, still important, but it should be like 5 to 10% of your time max. And again spend 60 to, you know, 120 minutes max on theorizing, then go test it. The rest of your day should be conversations. Um, and again, I really want to hammer that, that point down. Uh, the other piece would be misaligned incentives. Um, that a lot of people fall into this trap of let's just give them a referral commission. Uh, that's not what drives a business. You know, maybe if it's a creator or an affiliate, it fits a bit more because it can be transactional. But at the end of the day you always, always, always have to go back to this is an entire other business that has its own revenue train. And if I'm not fuel for that revenue train, they are not going to care. I, I'm going to be trying to course correct and either square peg, round hole something or just, you know, give them a gift of oh, nice money in the mail. Like, doesn't help my business because I can't really project for it because it's ad hoc. But if I'm able to attach, oh well, my revenue train is in this direction. Let's say I sell services and this partnership helps me sell more services. So every time this partner talks to me, I go, I'm going to be able to sell more services, uh, by talking to this person or this organization. Align those incentives specifically with what they care about. And you know, the way that you can validate that is again by asking and doing, you know, some due diligence and research ahead of time of again, the services that they put on their website, whatever it is for agencies and say, what is your company goal? What do you care about as an individual? Oh, you need, you know, net new revenue that, that sells more services, including upsell revenue of new services that your, your team could develop. Great, well I can help you do that. And that's where again, constantly asking that question of what does your company care about over the next quarter? What do you care about? What are you held accountable for? And aligning everything you talk about to that. That is how you align incentives. Not just by giving them money and you know, maybe putting them on a lunch and learn, um, in the future. So align with the incentives and constantly validate those. Because even if you already know it, if you're not bringing it up on a call and saying, okay, we are going to do this because this is going to translate into this specific incentive that you said, you know, a month ago that you care about. Do we agree that this activity will move towards that those KPIs that you care about, that you know, specific project that you care about? Do we agree? Yes. Great. Continuing to bring it up. Well, again, saturate in their mind that when this person, when this other company comes to talk to me, I associate what I care about and achieving what I care about with them. So incentive alignment and constantly validating that with them by again, like I used to do this as an example. Uh, I'll finish my point on this is like I would bring up a spreadsheet of opportunities and we agreed in the partnership we're trying to generate net new opportunities between each other. I would bring up a spreadsheet of here are the opportunities we've generated. Let's talk about how we're going to move forward and get to here. Uh, you know, there are changes in your organization. Are you still focused on this? Oh, okay. You're kind of shifting. You need to do a bit more marketing.

Host: Great.

Will Taylor: Well, I'm still focused on this. Marketing can help with that. So let's align those incentives. But I would literally be showing them on the screen. Here are the opportunities, here's the total value, here's the gap that we are at. So that it's constantly top of mind that when we show up, I'm going to be talking about this and I'm going to be asking you if it's still, uh, aligned. And if not, then we're going to, you know, course correct as appropriate. But, uh, you can't just show up to a call, say, where are my leads? Or you can't just show up to a call and, you know, not have an agenda. Because there's going to be a diffusion of responsibility in a partnership because they go, who's taking lead? We're both benefiting. Uh, that's an opportunity for you to take lead and do that with direct questions and uh, aligning with the incentives appropriately.

Host: And uh, the whole time that you're talking about this, I can't help but think you're just sell, I mean, it's selling, right? It's aligning on the goals and objectives of that organization. And like, you need to make sure that you're in alignment with, with mo both of your mutual actions. If not, it doesn't make sense. And that person could like you, you, you could say, hey, uh, well, your goal is that my goal is this however, our initial goal was to do A, B and C, but instead let's focus right now a little bit more. It's another initiative for us to develop more top of funnel and marketing type content for more brand awareness and understanding that. So given uh, that that aligns with your goals, how about we, we, we step aside with some of these opportunities and really focus a little bit more on some of that content or whatever the case is. I know that again that was just an example. But point being is that always understand what those goals are of what, what you're, what you're doing and what that other person is. Because if not why are you actually doing that in the first place? Um, any other thoughts on that?

Will Taylor: Uh, I, I always tell people that sellers are great partner people, especially if they can think a bit more broadly and strategically. But I always tell them like your core competencies as a partner, as a salesperson, rather like forecasting, project management to keep people accountable and on track and persuasion. Like you need to constantly show up and do those things every single day. Um, or else you know, people are busy and if you're one meeting out of their, you know, 40 hour work week and you're 30 minutes, like how do you expect them to think about you over everything else? Some of the other partners that they may have that all the projects, it's like if, unless if you're showing up and constantly providing value and providing that clear path to their goal, which is what sales does to effectively persuade, um, you're not going to, to win. So you truly are always selling when you're dealing with people to move things forward. Because uh, I always think about this and it's like a rule that I have where I'm like nobody wants to take the lead, nobody wants to make the first move, nobody wants to take lead, it's easier not to. So that's an opportunity for businesses and individuals who need to perform that you can take lead because you know the other person wants you to. So you know, give them that and respect them and it'll develop trust and it'll generate value and all that. And at the end of the day it'll also benefit you because you can direct the conversation as well. So uh, yeah, the, the rule is like everybody wants someone else to take lead. So if you can take lead, you are in the, you know, top 5% in your winning.

Host: I love that. And I think Adam Pash told me as well, like he will always send the first lead. Like don't just wait, go ahead, send it out. And then like that's a good test for somebody as well because if they're going to, if they're going to communicate back with you or if they close it or whatever, all of that is feedback that you're going to be bringing back into the organization. And I think feedback has been one of the biggest things, um, from my perspective right now, being two weeks in, of feedback from our existing teams of understanding what is a product about, feedback from potential partners or the people that we have theorized that they're going to be valuable. We're testing these assumptions and our hypotheses. Right? It's all science. I know you, you, you love psychology. I, I have a, you know, I have graduate in, in, you know, in, in, in the sciences as well. Um, so it's, it's all about understanding what is that hypothesis. Let's test it and let's iterate it. But let's not focus too much on that hypothesis. Let's, let's go do more of our tests and then if we need to come back after three, four or five calls and say, hey, we've seen a trend that this thing is actually off, let's tweak that and focus our direction a little bit more to where we're moving it. But don't focus too much on that testing because we could have a planning meeting to plan the planning meeting. Right? So we want to make sure that we're not doing all of that in the analysis paralysis that Will mentioned. It's really focused on, hey, you have this idea, let's go get some boots on the ground and go figure this out. And then if we need to iterate and kind of move forward, then we

Will Taylor: could do that too.

Host: Now that, that goes nicely into uh, if we're talking about this story of we already had our idea, ideal partner profile, we've already had some of these conversations. Now we're getting to the point where we're like, hey, we actually want, this person wants to become a partner. We found this mutual value and we have these goals aligned. Let's talk about what, what um, onboarding looks like now. Um, I know in our example we had a lot of different things of like we want to ah, give them access to different resources that we have in some of the value. Like for us we have a community of developers of over 8,000 people. Um, um, we have an affiliate link. We have resources like crazy. Like we've already built out um, uh, a pipe dream university where it's talking about some of these things where people could get value. Uh, but tell me a little bit more about some of the big focus areas. Um, uh, that would also be included in an onboarding that I didn't mention. Um, but also in that same context of what we're trying to focus our time effectively and we don't want to build out every single thing that we need to right now we're focused on, hey, we want to look like, uh, look like and be an established partner program so that we could build out all of those other resources later as well. But what is in that first, like V1 onboarding that's going to be super beneficial for, for these teams?

Will Taylor: So V1 onboarding I always recommend, uh, less is probably more because if you again build a lot and then try and force that to partners and they go, I don't care, then you just waste a lot of time. So less is more. Especially early stage and setting expectations, having a kickoff call and being like again, even if you're in a new program and it's building that new, like tell them that. Because if you kind of hide that you are a net new program and then they're really excited and they engage and then you're just strapped for time and resources you're not able to execute, then it's going to, you know, leave the bad taste in their mouth and you could burn that bridge. So be very, very clear, this is a new partner program. I want to set the expectation out of respect for you. You know, we chose you because, you know, you're already a power user. So we are hoping to build a lasting relationship with you. So like, out of respect, I want to let you know it's net new. However you can then influence and benefit the most because you know you're going to be the first one and you're going to allow us to direct the program and how you want it because you're going to give feedback so you know that's going to make them feel good. It's going to be very honest. You're going to be speaking directly, um, and do some simple like mapping of their organization. Because if you're going single threaded, that person could leave and your partnership is done. Figure out who the other key stakeholders are in the organization and do an organization map, let's say who leads marketing, who am I going to tap if we're, you know, doing a joint resource, uh, if I need brand assets, so on and so forth. Identify those key stakeholders in the organization, including folks like, um, you know, if they have an established partner team, who else is on the partner team, what do they do? Uh, if there's a marketing person, who's that? You know, who leads client delivery, let's say who would be involved in a new service being developed or an existing service being amplified. Okay, great, we understand who those people are. Write those down, give them the same on your side and from there put some project in place, have some uh, timeline to focus on so that it drives a little bit of urgency so that again it's not just excitement and then no one does anything for the next three weeks, um, because you're going to be busy building and they're going to be busy running their business. So add a specific timeline, maybe it's an upcoming marketing event, maybe it's uh, let's do this specific account review to identify where we can give you a lead like you mentioned, from what Adam Pash mentions, uh, to give the first lead, whatever it is, dangle that carrot of I'm going to give you value and we're going to set a timeline and that's when you can start doing project management where you can identify here's this person, uh, here's, you know, who's responsible, here's what we need done by when and you're going to have it all in one place. Maybe that's in a 60 minute kickoff call where you kind of go through all of that, um, and of course talk about the benefits of the program and where you want it to get to and again that very honest conversation with them. Um, and that again is going to set you up in a action oriented approach where you know who you need to talk to, you know who's doing what and you have a goal to work towards where even if you're a, ah, day one program like that's going to get you progress. Maybe it's a lead, maybe it's revenue, maybe it's even just good feedback because it might, you might fall in your face kind of thing. So build some form of like agenda or kickoff deck, uh, to run a call that focuses on those elements so that you can again put things in motion to keep that excitement going and work towards a goal and then continue to do those check ins. So that's what I would say is like core critical number one when building a program. Um, once you have done that, let's say 10 to 20 times and gotten feedback, then you can start developing resources to make it, you know, a bit more efficient, let's say. Um, and then what other content will be relevant to execute on those other programs? Uh, you know, maybe we do a launch with our partners and they, we do a webinar. Great, here's what that looks like and here's the resource that we have in the process documented. Um, so start to document some of those processes to make it easy to see the path to value. So that's what I would consider uh, focusing on for onboarding. Um, and once you get to, let's say phase two, that's where you can start having like a 90 day plan to be a bit more standardized. Uh, and um, yeah, everything else that you have created is good, but I would get ruthless on getting feedback on, hey, we have this university, what do you think they may go too much, don't care, not going to do it. Um, so you will need to simplify existing assets. But I would say 70% of the content is transferable to partnerships. And uh, so you just need to modify a little bit, keep it simple, keep it value oriented to how they benefit from it.

Host: That's exactly right. And it's so interesting that you say that because I've already talked to a lot of the team saying, hey, we probably have some type of resource or asset or something somewhere on this area. I don't want to reinvent this wheel and take that again. How do I go backward and do that? But to your point though, like, we don't want to give them too much. We want it to be actionable and we want them to be able to continue moving forward. All right, well, I know we're wrapping up on time so fast. Um, I just want to hear any extra feedback, thoughts, reactions that you have specifically in going out and building your own partner program from the ground up.

Will Taylor: I would say most, uh, web pages suck for like presenting the program. They'll say, oh, you can get this much commission. I would focus on what is the again actual value to that specific partner. For example, uh, agency partners who partner with US can make 30% more service revenue because we have a templated, uh, and certified service offering something like that. Um, get really specific and highlight case studies sooner rather than later. Um, because most, most pages are just so ambiguous that nobody knows what the program actually is and they're just going off of brand and or outreach from a partner person. Uh, so if you want to convert on that, then make sure it's super value oriented on what that specific partner will care about. Um, and have that almost like again a sales pitch. What's the value prop? Why should they join? Why should you know, your customers work with partners? Same thing. Customers who work with an agency see, you know, 30% additional adoption and whatever revenue from leveraging our services with an agency. So don't make it like everyone else. It's good to get that feedback and, like, see what competitors are doing, but ultimately make it like a conversion page that is value oriented for the specific partner, not what you think you'll pay them.

Host: Well, that was fantastic, man. Where could people learn more about you and everything you have going on?

Will Taylor: Follow me on LinkedIn. Will Taylor on, uh, LinkedIn, and I also run a blog called bdpaths.com. i, uh, try and put out content there, but take a browse, uh, book time with me on there as well. And, uh, if you need help standing up any partner program or operations and partnerships, hit me up, I'm your guy.

Host: Well, thank you so much.

Will Taylor: Thank you.