The PartnerUp co-host curse strikes again! Does that make me the WORST co-host ever???
It’s time to say goodbye to Michele for now - AND good luck in the next era of her career.
It may be the last but it’s certainly one of the best.
So tune in as we remember four years of being on the frontlines in hypergrowth partnerships together.
Learn how we went from “Experimental Business Unit” to trailblazing our way to that “Official” status, ramping reps in their first month, and many more stories.
PLUS I also drop the teaser of a new website I’m launching next week and name the new co-host!
Oh and hey, remember to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere you get your pods on the go. And if you’re on Youtube, smash the subscribe and notify button.
For the Apple Podcast fans, leave a FIVE STAR rating -- because Michele won't accept anything less.
And If you liked the show, share the episode with your commentary on LinkedIn and hash #partnerup #partnerships. Tag us in on the post so we can comment and share back!
SUBSCRIBE & LISTEN ON:
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Transcript
Jared Fuller 00:11
What is up We're back after the predictions episode and being wrapped my house ravaged by COVID in five weeks Michelle about YouTube skate this latest round of like COVID Chaos or Natvia
Michele Albanese 00:28
I was crazy. I went home for the holidays and I feel like everybody had it. I tested negative twice so I think I escaped. But yeah, I've heard your household was ravaged with so with COVID so but
Jared Fuller 00:42
yeah, like cycle five or six of this so being sick. Yeah, just like sick not sick. Sick, not sick. So that was super fun. But anyways, we're back after the predictions episode, which was my first solo one recorded that had been missing missing you folks, but we have a fully booked out schedule for the next. I mean, I'm almost looking at two and a half months out. It's crazy.
Michele Albanese 01:04
I'm going into 2022 Hot ready to rock refresh.
Jared Fuller 01:09
January's a fake month for me like that was not started. 2022 is actually February one offsetting my fiscal year. Fiscal Year, offsetting my life fiscal year. My New Year's resolution this year was to adopt an offset like
Michele Albanese 01:26
red just like I actually celebrate New Year's on January 31. Seven night not just
Jared Fuller 01:32
actually we were so sick, so sick on New Year's Eve that we were in bed and asleep before 8pm. Oh, my goodness. So that's actually a great call. We're celebrating New Year's.
Michele Albanese 01:45
It's our fiscal we're moving forward.
Jared Fuller 01:49
Well, happy to be back with you, Michelle. But before I get into the kind of like the topic in the news. One thing I wanted to call out is we have a stack 2022 There's some cool stuff coming up with dropping giant news. On the next episode, there'll be a new website, a new newsletter, and it's all launching on the next episode. So you don't get just know there's next episode 42 is going to be big. We're on 41 right now. So more to come. Give me the fish finger for the people that aren't watching on YouTube. But one of the big news pieces for 2022 is the cloud software Association Annual Conference, SAS connect April 27 to 28th in San Francisco, everyone I know is going to be there in partner land. Like all the lot of people I've interviewed on this podcast, so I'm stoked to be there and get this, we're going to have a partner up booth at the cloud software Association SAS connect. And what we're gonna do is we're gonna do like a rapid fire kind of like quick interview. So any of you that want to come in, like, share a quick story or chat real quick. We'll have you swing by the booth. So we're gonna be there too. So that's kind of the secret thing that we're taking over. SAS connect. So
Michele Albanese 03:01
yeah, so that'll come first. And events are back. It feels good. I think it's been two years since that event went on. I think it went on and maybe endo or April 2019. I want to say yeah, so yeah, April, I feel like we'll be a little bit better. It's, yeah, wait, because yeah, I was lucky enough to go two years ago. It's a great event. So if you haven't been before, definitely make an effort to get there. It's great. Like, yeah, so there's my CSA plug also joined the CSA board of directors. So I'm excited to kind of like, have a tighter, tighter relationship with, you know, widening the aperture of partnerships and just growing. So it's a you know, 501 C six nonprofit, right? It's not about making money. It's about giving back, which is why we do the podcast, still not making money, giving it to you. So Michelle, we have I have to address it is what it is. I'm the world's worst co host.
Jared Fuller 03:55
Because I'm calling this the partner up co host curse. Because Michelle, I thought you were lucky three, but it looks like we're coming to an end. You know, I've left drift for those of you didn't hear the the news. And Michelle, you're you're pivoting into taking kind of like a I'd say like almost a wider remit. But I'd say like, operationally speaking, you're taking a career kind of pivot a little still touch partnerships. But um, we kind of talk a little bit about, you know, the news. It's the last episode with CO hosts. It was short lived, but fun. Even though we worked together for four years.
Michele Albanese 04:26
I was gonna say it doesn't feel like short lived because you and I have worked together for so long. But we were live video calls like this every day, every single day. It's just different setting talking to a wider audience. But yeah, it's bittersweet. I've enjoyed my time on on the show, and it's a great show. So if you're in partnerships, it's definitely one of the best resources out there. So I have no doubt will continue to succeed but to Gerrits point, taking a little bit of a career pivot not too too crazy, but going to step my foot into the operations realm and take on regions roll at drift. So I'm excited to start to learn that kind of side of the business. I'm definitely a serial learner always willing to jump in and learn as much as they can, which is why I'm even on this podcast want to share the learnings we've had in partnerships over the year. But I'm excited for the next step in my career. But bittersweet to sign off here.
Jared Fuller 05:21
Yeah, the partner up co host curse strikes was worse co host. But I'll tease the next one. I'm actually really excited about it. And then Michelle, and I look into the stories real quick. So this is my friend of 13 years, Isaac Morehouse is going to be joining me as a co host. So if we've survived 13 years of friendship, we can, hopefully, he can, he can extend the street for a while, until I enact the curse again, but um, Isaac, we just, we just recorded our first one in releasing after this. It's fantastic. He's recorded over 500 podcast episodes, this entrepreneur of two companies, is written over 2000 blog posts. So like someone that knows how to just do the content game. And again, big, big friend of mine in a recent convert to ecosystem and partnerships. So he knows that, you know, I think level up the show definitely had some good feedback for me on how to make the show better, which is great. So I'm excited for that. That said for us to kind of part ways on one step, you know, end of the year and then second step, Michelle. But let's let's get in let's let's talk about I feel like this is a good buy, so to speak episode for now. Let's talk a little bit about maybe some of those kind of stories, you know, for years of being on the frontlines, and for growth partnerships, right like it was a wild run from nothing to you know, unicorn status. What story do you want to start? What's the first thing that stands out and like that partner trajectory together? We got to come up on the four year anniversary.
Michele Albanese 06:50
I'll even say something yeah for years and February's super proud that it survived this long, with drifts growth and us being able to keep up with that growth. But I'll even say one quick story before Jared was even on board the day we launched the partner program in typical drift fashion was scrappy, we were just last minute trying to get something together. And we had this whole productive video of you know, opening up this new program for any agency that wanted to partner with drift. We had, as usual, a drift bot on the website where you could apply to become a partner. And last Monday, we couldn't get it uploaded something wild was happening with the the productive video. And Dave Gearhart, in typical DG fashion, just took his iPhone out, took a selfie video of me, Julie Hogan and David Gearheart. And we're like, Hey, we're starting a partner program like links in bio, go ahead and get signed up. And then we got, gosh, so many applications, it was unbelievable. I mean, the drift brand in general, but also due to gigahertz
Jared Fuller 07:53
applications, remember?
07:55
So there was like 100 applications? Well, yeah, it was something
Michele Albanese 07:59
weird. At first, we were like, No one's even to pay attention to this. This is the scrappiest video of all time. But with Jeff's brand, and DGS, even wider brand. That's obviously grown since then we got like, three or 400 applications overnight, and just started going through. And yeah, that was crazy, because we hadn't spent so much time on a productive video. And then we just realize, don't keep it simple, you know, don't need to go over the top when it's your first step that gets something out there. See what the interest is? You never know what you can find. We certainly found a lot.
Jared Fuller 08:33
I mean, that's so let's start there. Because yeah, that's one of my favorite things. I mean, why went to drift in the first place was I knew about the brand before I really like I was an intercom user for years. And since you intercom launched, like literally, like I was one of the first I mean, had to be couple 100 paying customers of intercom. So I'd always been a fan of chat. And then like drift blew up out of nowhere with Mike it's chats the same thing. Yeah. But But I knew the brand, and I knew the people. And that's part of the reason I went to drift was that that early evangelism, where every employee was a marketer, where your brand mattered more than anything, give, give, and then get right like that. That early philosophy was the thing that I was like, I need to learn this. There's something different about this other than like, the selfie videos and things like that, like that was the first thing that I'll never forget, was being able to jump into things like that. Yeah. Where it's like, Hey, you want to do this now? Great. Let's just record a video of us doing. Yep, yeah. It'll be yourself. Right. Like Digi, right. Like you talk?
Michele Albanese 09:38
Yeah, definitely an authentic brand. I mean, even the reason we started the program was because we just had agencies asking us, they were like, can you just do this? And desease like, okay, let's just do it. And we just put it out there. And it's been, like we said for years, although it's changed a lot and there's been a lot of outrage. isn't it? Yeah, and I think data? Yeah, I tell people that are getting into partnerships with the first time this all the time that the purpose of your partner program when you start might not be the end game of the of the purpose, I think for us like it went through different phases of lifecycle of why we had it. I think in the beginning, it was people were asking us, can we get more sales? Can they kind of service this thing? I think we had a CSM team of like five. Now that was its initial purpose. And we got that moving. And once we did, we started tapping in the media market, hey, can we actually grow your brand through our partners out in EMEA? And then that worked well, and now I feel like its primary purpose from what I'm seeing is continue to dry pipeline. But also, can we actually use our solutions partner as that a solution for our customers to the service and drift in the best way possible, but not just drift? Everything that is around drift? And how can they really make money off that? So what its purpose was when we first started, I had no clue it would turn into what it is or what it is today. But I think really flexible with it on based on the the company's needs at that time, like drift growth, you had to keep up with that you had to stay relevant. And so we did that.
Jared Fuller 11:16
Totally. And then we created a category first things in, in partnerships, you know, yeah, like the solutions partner side all the way to the tech side, you know, now there's dedicated leadership on that with ARB who's a great partner leader in his own right that he's gonna crush it there. Where you have, you know, like conversational ABM, like we're the first company to really take account based and, you know, sales and marketing and integrate that into a conversational experience. Like we created that through tech partnerships. Yeah, I've never done anything like that. And we created our own stuff. So there's there's so many awesome lessons. And I think, using Digi and Dave Gearhart getting to see that DC Digi actually back and forth. I learned more marketing lessons than that. I'll probably forget more than I could ever learn anywhere else from those. It was special. Yeah, it was a special stands out. So like we get going. We start cranking. I think we were doing trainings together for onboarding new partners in the early days, videos. Got to kind of quota ish by ourselves.
Michele Albanese 12:19
Just the two of us. I have no sales background. Luckily, I had Jared on my team. And on my side because he knew how to sell that was for sure. And then when did we hire our first formal partner sales manager? When
Jared Fuller 12:30
did we Yeah, that was. That was about five months later. Yeah, was built the Marketo signed the Marketo deal, which was big, we didn't have the results yet sign that brought on our first partner rep got him to quarter, I think first month,
Michele Albanese 12:44
first month. And actually, it was a great idea to bring an AE that was just crushing it on the direct side that wanted to learn something new, I find that strategy really, really great because although he didn't have any channel experience, he had all the drift experience in the world to be able to make that message and then take everything he's learned in direct sales and bring that to partners. It worked really, really well. Yeah,
Jared Fuller 13:09
we let's explain this real quick. People don't understand how crazy this is. The first partner managers were laughing before we even get it out. The first partner managers that we had, right like we had to acquire partners, you had to sell through to their end customer, you were the sales executive. Right? So our channel team was segmented we didn't send deals to the direct team. Like Doesn't that seem so crazy in hindsight?
Michele Albanese 13:31
Now I think about it Yeah, we were like running our own little franchise within drift just selling and creating our own deals being our own
Jared Fuller 13:40
thing to our own partner success manager so like sell the deal and then service it with a partner we have like our own like not just department but like its own franchise. Yeah, yeah. So Seamus had got went from not a ramp quota. This is a fully productive no three quarters of a million dollar quota in terms of like ARR I think
Michele Albanese 14:01
now is the deal though Jared I think like the only way the VP would let us have him is it that he stayed at his fully by moving over like we'll make it happen and it did so
Jared Fuller 14:11
that's that that's that's wild social always appreciate moves for hopping into that Wild Wild Ride Eirik Guinea has definitely has its benefits I think we we under index I think the learning from the beginning is for people that don't know the context. So we Marketo was like my side project that was like my 30% of my time where I was just kind of building our first alliances so 70% of our time was on channel one and what was so interesting about that early time the fact that aside from we were full cycle right acquire partners sell through close a deal service them was that that that speed and bringing on Seamus and then like getting to quota and then being able to hire our next rep Bennett who was crazy. I think he got he almost got to quota in month one two is a net new
Michele Albanese 14:59
way. Dude, he's such a flat drift still crushing it. He's doing so well. It's awesome. But yeah,
Jared Fuller 15:07
it's not like how many
Michele Albanese 15:14
how many barter agreements are designed?
Jared Fuller 15:17
I mean, I was doing I think I was doing 10 calls a day with him.
Michele Albanese 15:23
Craig's he's really, really good. I
Jared Fuller 15:25
don't mean cold calls, I mean, like actual, like zoom calls. And the two of them
Michele Albanese 15:29
was a good, what is a good pair? I will say that for other people that are hiring maybe their first sales reps, like having somebody internal, it just that little channel experience. And then our second rep we hired had a ton of channel experience. And they were able to kind of like help each other out in the process, like, Hey, this is how you work with partners. And Seamus would be, it'll be like, This is how you work with drift and kind of marry the two to have the best solution. So that was a really bad combination.
Jared Fuller 15:55
We crushed that like, yeah, we that was good. So we were a separate franchise from all of drift. And we were
Michele Albanese 16:08
what were like an experimental business unit that like vicissitudes of drift, and then we have an experiment going on over here, and they have, like, become part of the team.
Jared Fuller 16:20
Wow. Yeah. So I mean, this is the way of like a Sequoia back like hyper growth startup. It was like, Okay, we got this little thing. And we were literally referred to in senior leadership meetings as an experimental business unit. Right. So like, our existence was on the chopping block. Yep. Right, month over month, as like, it was like, we might not have jobs that drift, this department might not exist at all. Like looking back on that. That seems crazy that we were like, okay, yeah, sure. That's normal.
Michele Albanese 16:48
We'll just hit our number. We'll just keep our heads down and keep moving forward.
Jared Fuller 16:51
Actually, there's a lesson here. I'm so glad we did this. So thank you, Michelle, for reminiscing things like brain. I feel like a lot of the partner people I've been talking to, they're getting more sophisticated. And there's understanding the challenge of like, doing what we did, like, it's so hard. I think that, like, in hindsight, that sounds absolutely crazy. That we had people's careers there, they signed up for an experimental business unit. And if we couldn't make the unit economics work, it's over. Period. Like, that's terrifying. But we also kicked ass.
Michele Albanese 17:28
We did great. I mean, like I said, we're still standing here for
Jared Fuller 17:33
the beginning, there was many phases of drifting, there were ups and downs. But that beginning phase, right, yeah, we had to nail a core Alliance, when we had to have on quota reps.
Michele Albanese 17:42
Yeah, we had a team of people that truly believed in what we were doing. And we all worked super hard to make it continue to run. Like we knew that this is something that we were like being we were an experiment. And we knew the only way we'd survive is we if we actually had a number, so we put our heads down. And we think we always figured out a way,
Jared Fuller 18:03
we were producing revenue and went from I can't give numbers, but we went to beating our targets and becoming an official business unit with our own, you know, full p&l and fully integrated into the business. And then there were several evolutions of that, but I think the lesson here is that a lot of partner leaders are kind of stepping into ambiguity without the urgency, right? Like their leadership doesn't know how to define success. So they might throw some crazy metrics on it, or what have you. They might buy some time, they might test some things. But like, we had a ticker, it was like, December, January, like there was no way we had to figure it out. And basically, the rule was, if we could get to quota, we could hire another rep. Yeah, it's like it was just productivity base. Yeah, produce the revenue. hire another rep.
Michele Albanese 18:51
Remember, as you said that, like I'm trying to remember when we hired Bailey, partner,
Jared Fuller 18:57
that was, that was March, April, he might have brought him on
Michele Albanese 19:01
before another rep, I can't remember. But same thing again, we took one of the best customer advocates at Drift that wanted to grow in his career and we brought him to partners, he was able to bring all the learnings he had being a support role, and bring that to partners and he felt super empowered that he could teach the masses on how to make sure thrilly work and same thing he's still adrift he is on our professional services team now is able to fulfill that I actually think he just got team lead of that team too, which is awesome. So um, yeah, I think another like the right hire,
Jared Fuller 19:36
shout out Bailey.
Michele Albanese 19:37
Shout out Bailey. I feel like another example of taking the employees you have at want a new challenge. Like want to be scrappy, you want to learn but also like know that. Like they have that ability to be frugal and scrappy and a company that's growing that might start to get some more red tape in place. Finding the people that just want to work hard is The number one my favorite people will hire SDRs. They just want to work harder than anybody ever seen if they're good SDR. So yeah, totally was our first success rep. And he crushed it as well.
Jared Fuller 20:14
Those urgencies an interesting takeaway, just like having the experimental business unit over your head and presenting, you know, in an executive setting and being like, okay, I guess this is normal. And it really wasn't because I think we had what, five or six of those? Yeah. Oh, yeah. And all of a sudden, we were the only one standing and it was like, oh, no, we can yeah.
Michele Albanese 20:35
I forgot. They were like, product. There were, oh, my gosh, yeah, there was other sales experiments and CSS. That's so
Jared Fuller 20:45
they were called an experiment. And they were killed.
Michele Albanese 20:48
Wow, go us.
Jared Fuller 20:52
Crazy to see happen. Right. Reflecting on that in terror, but
Michele Albanese 20:59
but like we did that worked? Yeah. I will say to like, if you're starting the program, I think the best thing that we did, that we had a little bit of runway on was when we started it, it really was around, not necessarily what sales we can get. But can we expand the brand? Can we build a drift army outside of these walls of people that advocate for us? And we weren't immediately asking for deals, right? It was like a true. We're not asking for anything in return. We just want to see what the interest is here on people believing in conversational marketing and wanting to echo that message and help us before and like I said, I feel like started in February you came on in June, we didn't hire our first rep till maybe November, October, November. So there was a good eight months, there were Yes, we were selling deals here and there. But the primary focus was building a community and an army to build our brand. And I think it worked great that way.
Jared Fuller 21:56
It's funny seeing that come full circle, too, because one of the things I'm diving into a lot as it relates to, I think some of those early lessons with drift is community, right? Like going where peers are with their peer groups. You know, like, that's why I shout out CSA all the time, or partnerships, leaders like I'm in both, I'm a paid member to both NATO both both great, great, orgs. CSA is more like wide tent. Right. So like building a bigger tent, which I believe in and then partnerships leaders is I think the the folks that are really trying to hone in on their leadership skills. And obviously overlap between the two is that is starting to seep into a lot of partner strategies now that I'm seeing with like, the most innovative companies is they're really leaning into community and partnering with communities of where their peer groups are, yeah, through things like marketplaces. And then just a bunch of different like, joining becoming a part of that community.
Michele Albanese 22:52
I mean, yeah, like tools like crossbeam, it's less about like your individual overlap, it's just showing you that marketplace of all the opportunity of overlap, you might not have even heard of, on your own research, or you know, through word of mouth of finding a partner that might be a good fit, how it's helping you find each other. And the fact that there's the businesses that have raised so much money around this, it just proves again, and again, this is not going away. And if you're not thinking about a partner strategy, you're going to be left behind. So I feel like kudos to drift for even having one so early. That being said, like tons of, you know, DC Nullius came from HubSpot, HubSpot, obviously, as a wildly successful partner program. And so although it was earlier stages, I think the purpose of partnerships evolves, and it's getting better and better. Even some of the stuff we're doing today, I'm just super impressed by the team and the way that we're thinking about going to market with our partners. So
Jared Fuller 23:48
yeah, it was a is a heck of a heck of a run end of a chapter for both of us. What other what are their seminal takeaways? I think those key moments. There's definitely some funny stories in there. Like, in some cool moments, you know, like DC speaking on the main stage at Adobe Summit, like we're the only company that is not Adobe in front of 20,000 people like I was their front row with him, but I think they were streaming that in the office too. Right? Yeah,
Michele Albanese 24:15
they were. Yeah. I think of like, we went to hypergrowth London, we got to meet a ton of partners out there. That was great. You went out to Australia for an event what event was that?
Jared Fuller 24:27
Did Did did that was Adobe Summit. APAC was a really awesome like building you know, international business actually going in market and being with you know, the first earliest partners. And then this is a hilarious story, actually. Because I show up as this giant conference. It's just me working a booth. I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is not okay. We got stuck in a horrible corner. And then fab from who's marketing for true team player? Yeah, helping Sydney Greater Austin APAC region. Shout out who shows up and goes, mate, you're here by yourself. I'm like, yeah, so he staff the booth with me the entire time. He's like this booth traffic is garbage like, like 100 balloons and like fans and like we're, we like, display on top of the display to drive traffic to us. And that was like kind of the spirit of partners in partnering then like he worked the booth with us the entire time we closed deals there. While we were there. We did the market for
Michele Albanese 25:30
partnership, right? Leveraging, look at you were alone in a in a continent. You knew no one. And you had a partner help you? That's great. Right? I actually, I have a question for you that I think could be helpful, too. I'm curious, like, thinking that the last four years, we've built this program and the last two, we've been in a pandemic. So I'm curious, like how you think, without a pandemic, like in person relationships, and verse and workshops? How much do you think that either forced us to work and communicate more often? Or was detrimental to the program? Like, I'm just curious, obviously, we'll never know what it could or could not have done. But yeah, I'd love to pick your brain if you thought about that at all.
Jared Fuller 26:17
No, question. Because
Michele Albanese 26:24
like, what I'll say is most of our productive partners, I have met in person prior to the pandemic, and they are the most productive partners.
Jared Fuller 26:31
Well, I mean, look at how I activated Marketo. I mean, we got a narrative down, signed a big deal. And then I had to meet the team in San Francisco to do that. And then I had to meet the team in Denver whenever we did the deal with you know, into Adobe. And then I went to every single Marketo office, right with literally go, Yeah, that's cool swag, that when I sat down at every Marketo, CSMs desk, yep, in C, in San Francisco, or San Jose, I guess, San Jose, Seattle. And sorry, Sam, San Jose, Portland and Denver. And when desta desk, you know, literally asked people to pull up Salesforce, that was like, the first thing I would say, and I'm like, I'm going to be your favorite partner. Want me to teach you how to double? You know, the number of contacts in each of your accounts database. Here's how you do it. And it's by intro in drift. I'm your new favorite partner. And they literally did, like we sat there and they made intros, I think we have like 500 tagged? Yeah, gosh,
Michele Albanese 27:38
that's what I'm saying. I'm
Jared Fuller 27:39
able to do that.
Michele Albanese 27:40
Right. It's like, what are the I know, everybody? This is a topic everybody like how to, you know, make it feel like the zoo happy hours, we used to have just like waving get together. Obviously, this pandemic is out of our hands. So how do we how do we build those relationships without having that quality time outside of work conversations? Do I think those are helpful as well?
Jared Fuller 28:02
So I'm actually going to say, I think that stuff that we just talked about is timeless. And we just had a blip in time, right? Like, like it's not over forever? No, I think the people that can lean into it sooner rather than later. So here's my key takeaway is what I signed up in wish for that way that that unfolded, again, no, every amount of press pressure and stress, and it just sucked. I mean, there's just no other way to describe a lot of that time that suck. You just remember how anxious we all were everyone? Like for just months and months, like no idea. No idea. I think we're at a stage right now where we've like, at least got Stockholm Syndrome, or I don't know, Munchausen is whatever it's called wherever, like, we're just accepted this world that we live in. So there's not the anxiety but month to month, it was like for a year and a half
Michele Albanese 28:54
right? Especially with partners overseas as well, either partners. Like I remember one of our partners lead fabric. The CEO there was letting us know what was happening there. And there's likely going to happen in the US next, like very early days of pandemic. It's like every country and the way they're handling things is going to be different state to state you see how they're handling it differently. So I like I like that point you make though Jared. And I think that's a forever thing. Although it's in time mountain. I think about the events are starting to come back drifts having an event and a few months and you just mentioned the cloud software Association APR so I think we're trending in the right direction. But yeah, it's it's valuable. It's super valuable. My
Jared Fuller 29:39
it is a hack, so get out there sooner rather than later. Obviously, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a politician. So I won't lie about what what is going on right now on either side. But to the people who can the more that you can get out and make those relationships happen and like do regional tours. I mean, that was some Our most successful stuff was like those regional tours, we get a bunch of partner meetings in one place or, you know, hop from city to city or the big events. So I would say, I have no idea what it would look like. Probably, I think better, to be honest. But I think we also could have made more mistakes. We were, you know, we were in wartime for six months that I think produce some good results, because it ended with us being fully integrated throughout the entire business, which was kind of part of the longer term plan and that might not have happened, right. So that war time period of six months, that really sucked, you know, yeah, the cowboy faces with the war paint. You know, it's like emojis. Yeah, I mean, that was wartime, Calvin, you know, catfolk whatever the heck they're called. And yeah, I think that was that. That's a good question. So I don't maybe a little bit bigger, but then maybe would have exploded a little bit. You know, I think we might have like had an implosion and like a downsizing because it just the individual and then have to integrate, so it forces to integrate sooner rather than later, I think would be the silver lining. And key takeaway is in person stuff is key. I just did a San Francisco trip. I paid the price. 90% Sure. I got COVID. I thought I was safe. I was vaccine all that nope, that's pretty sure I got COVID. Apparently not. But once we get through, it's like Bakst. And I've had it like,
Michele Albanese 31:22
I'm gonna do what else? So
Jared Fuller 31:25
yeah, I'm not waiting for anything else. So yeah, I don't know. It's February 1. That's how we're gonna end this. This is the Oh, yeah. We're alive. We're offsetting by one month. It's a new year, Michelle and I are starting new ventures. Partner up next episode is going to be amazing. I'm announcing something special, a new website that's launching that I've created. I'm super stoked about it. And it's all for you. It's gonna be free. And yeah, just more content, more awesome stuff that you guys and gals are gonna love. So Michelle, thanks for being a partner of the past four years. You know, bittersweet, but y'all are going to continue to crush it adrift. And yeah, I'm, I'm actually going to go evangelize this partner thing full time. I actually believe in it that
Michele Albanese 32:08
I'm excited for you to announce what's next. Yeah. It's gonna be great. So
Jared Fuller 32:15
we'll partner up. Peace out. We'll see you all next time. And oh, I do want to drop this too, because I've just hired my first person to help me out with this new podcast schedule. We'll drop this one and then starting February 8 is the official date February 8, every single Tuesday. There's a new partner up. So you have to wait. Once you're dropping every single Tuesday starting February 8. So that's partner 442 will be live. So we'll see you next time. Thank you, Michelle.
