I'm not in the business of partnerships. I'm in the business of relationships that make money together. - Cory Snyder
Cory Snyder, VP of Partnerships at Sendoso, joined the Sam and Jason Yarborough to talk sales, partnerships, and balancing work and life on the podcast.
He reveals how he got his start in partnerships the tactics he's used to get to cash quickly.
Cory discusses everything from what he looks for in partners to how he prioritizes showing up for his kids to how partner tech has evolved.
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Highlights
- Intro to the show. 0:00
- Welcome to the friends with benefits podcast.
- Introducing the partner pro, Cory Schneider.
- How do we generate revenue together? 1:24
- The elephant in the room.
- Friends with benefits, how to generate revenue together.
- How to start relationships first.
- Fastest way to get the most revenue. 5:40
- The three steps to creating a winning relationship.
- The three-step sales methodology.
- Internal relationships matter just as much as external relationships.
- Sustainable growth requires internal champions and relationships.
- How do you build internal relationships with your partners? 9:24
- Leveraging partners to help account executives move their pipeline.
- Step one, build internal relationships.
- The transition from sales to partnerships.
- The importance of being inquisitive in sales.
- The common thread that runs through all of his programs. 13:06
- Commonality and red thread that runs through all of his programs.
- Listening with intention.
- Breaking down barriers with new partners.
- Having a path to success with methodology.
- Executing on what you’ve heard. 17:33
- Most partnerships are often not done.
- Partnerships are becoming a mega thing.
- How to articulate the impact of partnerships.
- Creating internal champions from the bottom up.
- How to get executives to share your impact. 21:33
- Get other people to tell the executives about the impact.
- Get others talking about it.
- Listen and execute, then show up and execute.
- Managing stress and work-life balance.
- Mental awareness and mental health. 25:18
- Mental awareness is a weakness for men.
- June is men's mental awareness month.
- Mental health, mental health, and physical health.
- How Mike started his mental health journey.
- The importance of self worth and self-loveself-worth. 29:33
- The importance of self-worth and self-love in partnership.
- The first steps in breaking down barriers and opening up and allowing others in.
- The importance of setting goals. 32:47
- Tent check at the end of the week, personal and professional goals.
- One-on-one time with his daughter, having one on one conversations.
- Cory has a core group of five accountability partners.
- Cory and boris talk about the importance of accountability and accountability.
- Managing a successful career and prioritizing relationships. 38:47
- Psa for those who feel alone or need accountability.
- Being a husband and father.
- Being involved in his kid's lives.
- Going out every weekend with his wife.
- Setting boundaries and setting goals with your wife. 43:16
- Setting boundaries and setting goals with his wife.
- The importance of creating family contracts.
- Establishing boundaries before accepting a job.
- Listening for different things during an interview.
- The importance of setting boundaries. 47:19
- The importance of having boundaries in a job.
- Best date night ever.
- A memorable moment in Europe, visiting the Airbnb in Amsterdam.
- Cory and his wife are both cow lovers.
Transcript:
Jason Yarborough 0:09
Welcome to the Friends with Benefits podcast, a business podcast about revenue generating partnerships, not a podcast about business time with friends. We're your co hosting couple. I'm Jason.
Sam Yarborough 0:23
And I'm Sam. Welcome to the show friends.
Jason Yarborough 0:26
Welcome back to the show Friends, we have officially made it to double digits, Sam graduations, we've done it.
Unknown Speaker 0:34
Our work here is done.
Jason Yarborough 0:35
It worked. It was done. And people are actually listening. I mean, a few like my mom has sent it to all of her clients spoke on so that's, you know, half of them and you know, the other half of maybe you know, the actual partner people, but it's been a lot of fun getting to Episode 10 with you.
Unknown Speaker 0:48
Absolutely.
Jason Yarborough 0:49
Today, we've got, we've got it we've got to go into to kick yourself into double digits. We've got the partner pro of partner pros with us, means a man who's been around the block and written multiple playbooks, probably and we probably all use some of them. And they gotta have you probably know him as the guy leading partnerships. And so dozo we're going to open that up a little bit today. And you know, when he's not playing golf in the microwave, that's Scottsdale, Arizona. He's busy being a model husband and father. We'll talk about that as well. You know, obviously, I'm talking about the one and only Cory Schneider. Welcome to the show, my man.
Cory Snyder 1:24
Geez, when he's talking about a build, I need you to do intros for me constantly.
Jason Yarborough 1:30
I'm starting a new business where I write intros for people. I can be contracted at yarby.
Cory Snyder 1:36
Professional height, man. Yes, professional. Heidemann is exactly it.
Jason Yarborough 1:40
It's like I could do some damage there. I think it'd be a lot of fun. How are you?
Speaker 2 1:45
Yeah, well, thanks for having me out. I'm stoked. I've been I've been jealous about watching all these episodes. And I'm like, hey, I'll take number 10. First time in double digits. I'll be that guy.
Jason Yarborough 1:53
We've been kind of having some back channels with Braden Braden, and if you're listening, I know you are. Sorry that Corey made it on before you admit it as a partner podcast. I mean,
Sam Yarborough 2:03
I was gonna say Braden is gonna be pretty bummed. Yeah, I'm gonna wrap it
Jason Yarborough 2:08
in. Yeah, please. Yeah, well, we'll give them the swag. Like an honorary guest. Yes. So let's, let's kick this thing off. And to kick it off, I can't think of a better way than to kind of address the elephant in the room. If I may. The the swag elephant. See, Sam Korea, you guys are kind of competitors. And we've got you on the podcast here. So it just wanted to kind of address this, like, you know, Are we cool here? Like, we're not gonna have to like separate you guys. Mute anybody like,
Sam Yarborough 2:37
Cory, I just want to start off by saying this is not being recorded. So whatever you want to say will not be held against you?
Jason Yarborough 2:49
Yeah, yeah. We have an NDA in place. Right.
Cory Snyder 2:54
Yeah. What's interesting, though, is, and I'll be quick on this was like, I know almost everybody that was in partnerships that all these other organizations that would be considered competitors. And at the end of the day, it's like, we're in the business of relationships and friendships. And so and like, as soon as Sam was at that event, I think it was probably Salesforce has been, as I call it toxic, you know, in getting understand who she is and what she does for a living, what makes them successful, and realize there's a relationship here that's going to go beyond these companies. And that's what cares. That's what I care about personally. So there's no obviously no issues here
Sam Yarborough 3:28
like that. Yeah, actually, you and I met at Dreamforce. I think, yes, that's versus face to face. Mike's daughter was there. We just did an episode with him, which he's great. So I love what you just said, Because Jason and I feel that in our bones. That's literally why we started this podcast, and a good segue into what I wanted to ask and what we ask all of our guests first. So Cory, in the context of partnerships, in b2b SaaS, what does Friends with Benefits mean to you?
Cory Snyder 4:01
That's a good question. Obviously. The benefits piece is really how do we generate revenue together? Right? Like if I, if I'm in a partnership, and I'm, and I'm doing all the work, or they're doing all the work, then there's a level of reciprocity that I'm not following through with. And so like in the business of relationships in the business of driving revenue together, that's my entire goal, every partner I've talked to is like, if we're not successfully driving you revenue, and vice versa, then we need to figure something else out. And to me, that is the definition of business friends with benefits is exactly that is like how do we generate revenue together? I worked with agencies where we generated up to $4 million together over the course of several years. And that revenue in because they they were selling a specific product that I was doing, that revenue specifically came back to me where I got paid out so this is this reciprocity, this thing that we did, but that's really what it is is like how do we generate revenue together? And then through leveraging those relationships that we have, we pull in the other organizations from the team right the other marketing Marketing and Sales and everybody else, and you create this really cool. funnel, I guess would be one of the words via
Jason Yarborough 5:08
truly being better together. Yes, absolute
Sam Yarborough 5:12
love and having outcomes as a result, I think that's great. So, I've heard you say I'm not in the business of partnerships, I'm in the business of relationships that make money together, which you kind of just dived into a little bit. So for somebody who maybe is new to new to partnerships, and is like, I gotta go make money. Yeah. How do we start those relationships first, to get to the end goal of revenue money?
Cory Snyder 5:40
Yeah, that's a tough one. What's funny is like, you want to test your ability to explain what you do for a living, get in an Uber and have somebody ask you what you do. And then you come up with that. And yeah, you come up with lines like that you're like that was pretty dope actually. Write it down, is Yeah. So how how I've kind of looked at it is, like, quickest the cash, if you will, I mean, I know that's a methodology within sales and everything else. But the way I look at it is like, we now have some of the greatest technology at our fingertips that we didn't have 10 years ago, back when I was doing CSV exports, and V lookups. To do overlaps, right. So the quickest way for me in in what I've done is like one come up with your methodology to where you want to go and where you want to take that relationship. So for me specifically, it is once I have a relate once have a conversation with a partner, I understand now we can connect and understand our overlaps. Whether that's reveal or crossbeam. Reveal. It's, it's at the end of the day, you're doing your overlaps. Once you have an understanding your overlaps, you automatically know what your customers are in common. You also know what open opportunities do I have that the customer has is that the partner has as a customer and vice versa? So quickest to cash is like how can I impact rev outcome and impact pipeline? Right? So that's step one, how do I help the AES, get that deal further down the line. So now they're bought into partners, now you're creating this like, methodology of building your champions from the ground up, kind of thing. But that's the way that I've done is like, strategically and tactically, I'm running a big initiative right now, where I'm taking. We have four partners, and we're focused on these four partners, and we're taking our prospects that are their customers. And we're sending an email to them saying, Hey, did you know we have an integration? There's no this case study exists, right? So there's a level of the three things that I focus on every day, creating pipeline, moving pipeline, and reactivating pipeline. And so you want to get quickest to cash, you want to get quickest to generating revenue, connect the dots with your overlaps, understand where there's an opportunity for you to move pipeline for your partner, and your your partner to move pipeline for you. And then come up with a strategy and tactics with your marketing team to go after stuff that is not in pipeline that you could generate, leveraging the fact that they're your your partners, customers.
Sam Yarborough 7:55
Well, there you go, people. That's how you run partnerships. We're done here,
Jason Yarborough 7:59
those fastest podcast ever. Thanks for joining us. So in the spirit of like our podcasts and relationships, how have you seen that just kind of run up motion with your team in the pipeline, creating moving, Sudden Impact initial relationships? internally with your team, we were kind of chatting about this before we hit record, but internal relationships matter just as much as external. So how was that motion, coming out the gate swinging heavy like that impacted those relationships internally.
Speaker 2 8:31
If you want for if you want sustainable growth, you have to have internal champions and interrelationships. You cannot do it on your own. I am right now the sole person doing partnerships at Sonos with 300 Plus partners. The reason I'm able to do that is because I have such because I have such a great team of people in marketing people and sales people in product that understand the benefit of partners. Now, did they initially potentially not as I started, like just giving an example this quarter we've done for partner webinars webinars with four partners, just this quarter generate 1000s of leads and the reason why is because I went to partner said do you want to do webinar? Would you do the webinar would will support it? Will everything right? Lower the need from our marketing team to do anything from just hey, supporting it from a marketing perspective. Now they're seeing all this influx of leads and all this success that's coming through now they're getting bought it. So now I have them asking me Hey, we don't have we have an opening in August, September. Can you go find a partner to do that with? So now I have them pushing me to get partners pulled in the account executives. We have a pilot we're running with HubSpot. We're doing some stuff with other partners. The Account Executives now are leveraging partners to help them move their pipeline. Like I've one count executive is talking to three CSMs about his deals at HubSpot next week. You just have to get data, get in there, understand their KPIs, understand what they want and how do your partners play a role in that and you build is really really good relationship with them because you're hitting You're helping them hit their metrics, their bottom line, what makes them look good internally,
Jason Yarborough 10:05
then you gotta establish that level of trust with them first, like, show them the value shown with the partners can bring to the table. Once they start trusting you then they like, oh, there's, there's there's four opportunities in this. Well, Cory is holding the keys of the world. Let me get in there. So exactly. That's got to be I think, you know, that every roll every time you take a, you know, a new program on, I think there's got to be step one is how do you build these internal relationships? And one of the things I really want to talk to you about kind of aligns with that is that you've been doing this for what, 13 years now, as partnerships even better thing than long.
Cory Snyder 10:38
Yeah, since like, 2000. Yes, since like, 2010 or so? I don't know about I'm not, I don't know about that. But I know there was there was some pain points for sure. back then. And in 2010, when I, when I started doing partnerships, it was before I was in the role, actually started doing partnerships. Because when I was an account executive, and I was extremely competitive. And I knew that if I could, I could increase my conversion rate, I could dominate when it came to conversion rates, no problem. Because I was lucky enough, I figured out what I was good at in life. But then it transitioned from that to say, Well, why don't I just go get my own SGS want to self generate leads? Why don't I just go find people that will send me stuff. So I started hunting partnerships. And so I started yapping people by two months, that revenue for the year. And it was 100% due to partnerships. And so like a year later, the CEO came to me and said, Hey, we're starting this team, you want it? And I said, Oh, yeah, I want it. And here we are.
Jason Yarborough 11:33
That's amazing. Yeah, just a little bit of grit and hard work. You said, you just said something like you figured out what you were good at in life. What would you figure out?
Cory Snyder 11:43
I love talking with people. And I love understanding what they're what they're trying to accomplish. So sales is I love sales. I've always loved sales, I will continue to love sales. Somebody sent me a LinkedIn connection the other day. And in their subject, their title was I hate sales. And immediately I did not accept it. Decline. Yeah. But yes, so it's I want I love obviously part. I love partnerships, and I love sales. But I figured out early on, I love to talk to I love to understand, like, sureness, tons of curiosity, of like, how are they making money? You know what I mean? Like, there's businesses names out there, and like, how the heck does that make any sense? Like, how are they making money? And so just being inquisitive and trying to understand what that is? And then I figured out early, like, I knew how to dive into people's motivation, like true motivation. What are they struggling with? What's their pain point? What's what's going on in life? And then how does that tie into the product that I'm offering? Can I solve a pain point? Can I solve the problem for him? If I did not pass them to one of our competitors that just did something better. And that's just the way I've always ran it. So I got to a point where I would have half of my sales would be dead ops, that would just come back to life. And it was just people coming back because they're like, Hey, you treated me well, I remembered your name, and boom, here we are. So I think that's what I again, back then it was relationships to. That's, that's what I cared about. So
Jason Yarborough 13:09
over the course of these 13 years, and you've built and scaled multiple programs, have you is there any sort of commonality or red thread that runs through all these programs that you built that kind of led to your success? Like, what are you replicated over and over?
Cory Snyder 13:25
Yeah, it came down to obviously, tons and tons of mistakes. There were a couple of them, we had a one of my companies I worked for, we had an award called swinging a miss. And you literally got an award. Yeah, you got an award for like, get NAFTA and even if you fell on your face, you still like made the attempt. And I probably would have won that every day of the first four years of my partnership career. What I realized early on was was that like our CSMs are telling us and our customers were telling us who aren't already, like I didn't have to get creative. I didn't have to like think outside the box. I could just literally they were already talking about them. Yeah, I could literally listen to Gong calls or I could go sit on the phone with them back then it was called Why connect if you remember that the how old you are. But you'd go and you tap into the why connect and you'd literally listen to their calls and be like, Okay, this is the integration that we're talking about. This is where they're losing deals. This is where they're we're gaining deals. This is where they're referred from for referred by Oh listen, they're ever marketing agency they're working directly with creates our content, like cool, I need to launch an agency program. Cool. I need to watch this. And so that's where I generally always ICPs now part of my methodology when I go into a company, or I go into an organization is I is I look at specifically who their ICP is where they're where their issues, where are their points where things are falling, right? We're losing churn, reducing, not using it, whatever. And that's where I start, I start with ICP to understand our IPP, our ideal partner product, if that helps.
Jason Yarborough 15:01
don't love it. Kind of the aspect of listening, listening with intention and understanding, understanding the ICP, understanding the pain, understand the problems and hoping that you can solve that via the product partners that you've been listening to already.
Sam Yarborough 15:19
That's what I wrote down to, when you were just chatting with listen. And I think that is not just in one facet of the business, but you were listening to your customers as to where your roadmap or your integration strategy should go, you were listening to your AES what they need, what makes them tick. I've also heard you talk about when you talk to new partners, you really try to break down the barriers of starting that conversation with what's working, what's not really tell me, this is like one of the first things you said you do when you meet new partners, how do you ensure that it doesn't stop there? Like do you do formalize coming back to this conversation with your partners via like cube ers? Or how do you continually check in and not just like, get an autopilot and move forward?
Cory Snyder 16:06
Yeah, it's good question. So one, as I tried, again, methodology, super important, right? So back in the day, I called a be had which was called big, hairy, audacious goal. And you'd have this plan or that you just create an Excel document. It's like, who's the partner? What are the what are their goals and trying to accomplish? And then what are the initiatives that play into it? Who owns it, so it's whether it's you or the partner? So you'd go through this whole process. Now I've just come up with where I feel my methodology and what I'm able to do. And so I have a path of execute on which is, again, leveraging that Crosby reveal data to basically say, like, Okay, we have customers a common, let's go find a customer story. Let's not state stop there, though. Let's move on to the next step, which is like, what opportunities do you have that we can help close and give you some insight on and vice versa. And so really, it's just like, treating steps just like a customer. If the crease step for these partners. And if they execute, and they're doing it, then I'm in there with them too. So the amount of energy you put in, I'm gonna match. And so really, that's where it comes down to, and then you try to drive success. If I can drive them a win, boom, they're gonna then have a win themselves. Yeah, so that's what I've tried to do is just have like a path.
Sam Yarborough 17:18
The other thing I've heard you say, over and over in art, what are we at now 1520 minutes is listen, but then more importantly, execute. And I think those are two very easy things, but not often done. So there's your path to success,
Jason Yarborough 17:33
most often not done, like, people aren't executing on what they heard. I think, you know, most people listen, just for the sake of like, making you feel good. But not many people are saying like, Hey, here's what I've heard. And here's what we've done. Right in executing for the sole purpose of, you know, delivering that value based off what you heard nothing. There's so much value and richness in the
Unknown Speaker 17:55
absolutely
Cory Snyder 17:57
agreed. Sorry, if there's background noise, my kids are home. So pure chaos.
Jason Yarborough 18:00
Part of the deal. Love it. Welcome. Welcome to 2023
Cory Snyder 18:04
We literally locked him outside. So in Arizona summer, there's I was going to add there was a pool, so they're swimming. So somebody's Washington. Come on in kids, it's fine. Yes.
Jason Yarborough 18:16
Then, alright, let's, uh, let's, let's pivot for just a second and talk a little bit about about change. Collectively here, in this podcast room, we've got two decades of experience in partnerships, right. And right now, I think we're probably experiencing more change. And the partnership, industry, whatever you want to call it, than ever before. Specifically, like, you know, we're seeing more and more people with a job title of director or partner, partner manager, whatever it might be. You got, yeah, you've got consultants, you've got a couple of 100 technology players now. Finally, getting accepted to the C suite level, like, what does what does Cory Schneider make of all this? And where do you where do you see it going? Like, what's, what's becoming of this tiny little thing of partnerships is now becoming a mega thing.
Cory Snyder 19:09
Yeah, I mean, that's a loaded question.
Jason Yarborough 19:13
We're here. We're here for the load times.
Speaker 2 19:15
Yes. Because if you talk to a lot of people, the reason why there's been a lot of layoffs on the partnership side is because they weren't tied to revenue. Right? There's an attribution issue. And I'm stealing that from Jason, because I know that you said that there's an attribution issue. I read that. Trust that question. Yes, it is true. I mean, I had a conversation today with my teams, and we're talking about like, how do we, how do I articulate the impact on making partnerships, right? We just did four webinars with partners and we generate 1000s of leads. It's like, okay, great is that influence? Is that generated? Like, what is that and I think even today, we're still struggling with that. I would tell you though, it's way better than it was 10 years ago, because 10 years ago, my partner, my marketing team had nothing they want to do anything with me. Like it was attribution, I was like, Nope, you didn't touch this. It's all us. And no, this is you and I'm not gonna do anything with you. Because if I do that, then that's time that I'm spending away from my attribution of my KPIs. So for me, it was just, it was a title revenues like it's how do you tie yourself to revenue, how you tie yourself to impact but the thing is, a lot of people are tying themselves to just either AES or they're tying them to something. For me, I'm literally that's reason why I'm focused on creating pipeline marketing, moving pipeline sales, reactivating pipeline, also sales. But what goes into that reactivating pipeline and pipeline is also renewals. Yep. So now I'm on customer success and account management, helping them look at Hey, the, the prospect has gone dark with a new customer has gone dark on renewal. Do you know anybody? Do you have a partner that we can pull in blah, blah, blah? So to give you a kind of a loaded answer, I think a lot of laying a lot of people were laid laid off because of the way they were articulating specifically the impact they were making it was them articulating that impact. Not the entire company articulating the impact. Right, that is the in my opinion, that's the difference. And I'm gonna I'm gonna do this at catalyst comm. My talk is around creating internal champions from the bottom up. That is the ideas like if I can get an army to be like, Cory, Cory, because I'm the only one on the team. Otherwise, I'd say we Cory Cory COVID. He is like, he's helped me here. He's helped me here here in if I can get that. Then when I talked to my executive team, they're just like, hey, it sounds like you're doing a great job. I heard from Jake or Spencer here from so and so. Right. So it's yeah, you want to save your ass? Right, which is what I mentioned a will at at one of the events is like, get other people to tell the executives your impact. That's how you do it.
Jason Yarborough 21:45
Yeah, absolutely. And it's funny, I experienced that firsthand drift. And we kind of had the same issue with with the marketing team, not a whole lot of thought from like the beginning stages with strategy to bring partners in. But obviously, we can change that mindset. Like our pal, Justin Keller began like singing the praises of, of partners, and Tom and some of those guys like just talking about all the leads and revenue. And then yes, we were driving. And so then cells begin to like, oh, maybe we should perk up a little bit more. And then, over time, like it began to swell. And the whole, you know, near bounce strategy of being fully embedded into your field teams began to take effect. Yes, that's right. You gotta get others talking about it can just be you, you would die on that hill alone, man.
Cory Snyder 22:26
Oh, yeah. And that's, I think that's what ultimately happened is like, I think also, there's a level of like, everybody got bought into partnerships, like, oh, we have to have a partner program because everybody seemed we have to have a partner program. And they did not start with ICP. They did not start with like a path or a playbook or you got other people like will tailor in Justin zero minute, I've literally said I'm in partnerships. Now. I'm going to call every single person I know that's in partnerships. And I'm gonna ask them how to do my job. And it's been positive, smartest move they've ever did, because they blew up. They understood it super quick, their their ability to understand partnerships and soak in all of this knowledge happened extremely fast, because we are all open to giving our knowledge, right. But we're not like, Oh, this is my IP, or like, no, no, take it go make this successful.
Jason Yarborough 23:09
Yeah, no, to
Sam Yarborough 23:12
one of the things that I just it's like, yeah, well willing to share, but you got to put in the work. It's that listen and execute again, it's like, listen to as many podcasts as you want. But if you're not going to do it, and you're not going to be a good person show up and then execute on it, then. Sorry. Yeah,
Cory Snyder 23:28
I had a 20 sales reps when I was selling in this partnership, I gave everybody the information one did it out. It's why
Jason Yarborough 23:35
isn't it wild? Like you've pretty much got the answers to the test, and only one people are going to use that cheat sheet.
Cory Snyder 23:40
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Get out of your comfort zone a little bit. Right. I mean, yeah.
Sam Yarborough 23:45
So I want to shift gears yet again. And I want to talk about this is so timely, your kids are in the background, which we love that more power to you, and then bringing your whole self to work. We've seen you post a few times about managing stress work life balance. This is not something that's talked about that often or enough the relationship you have with yourself and how that impacts literally everything. Your results at work, your home life, all of it. Are you willing to share a little bit more about that with us and how you approach that?
Cory Snyder 24:23
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think initially you have this I think impostor syndrome is obviously part of, unfortunately, it's becoming more of a buzzword than it should be. But impostor syndrome, to me, I always say it's when you first start a place. You've earned it, you've earned your life dream job. Potentially, you've earned a promotion. And now you're like, oh, shit, can I actually do this? Am I smart enough? Do I know what I'm talking about? It's like, sometimes that's where that that right there is why you need friendship. That's why you need people to even talk to you a little yarby and I've talked we talked last week about some stuff as well and we're able to like talk as prepper for nationals as friends, about just like what's going on in our worlds, right? It's like, do you have the knowledge? Do you have the understanding? Yes, you do, right. But maybe you need a little bit of guidance to say, Where's your weakness to try to dial it in. That's why you need friends and you need other people that you can trust with, that have other skill sets you may not have, right. And so by being able to articulate that actually say that, and so I've been a big, I pushed on the mental awareness stuff for men specifically, because we just don't talk about it is a weakness for us. And partially as because we were born with this, with this partially to say like, No, I don't share feelings, I don't share things I'm strong with, I'm going to internalize them. And to an extent that is, can be considered empowering at times. But really, what it is, is it's, it is completely stunting your growth, and your ability to be a better human and to be a better friend, and to be a better husband and a father, and the whole night, brother, whatever it may be. And so I've been trying to be a little bit more out there, I put together a golf outing with about eight individuals. I've been doing it last four years, and it's literally in June. And the whole purpose of that is June is men's mental awareness month. Every June, I get together with eight dudes, we go golfing for three days, we talk about life, like we played cards, but we're talking about life, like what's going on your world. These are guys that none of them outside of one was in software, and half the time, none of them are in software. So I get this cool perspective, from my brother who's like in construction 25 years, right and where he's dealing with and where he's gonna cross. But for me, I've always, for the most part, have always talked of always talk shit about myself, like a better words. And it's always just been a weakness of myself, I don't know why. But the more that I can open up and have those conversations with individuals, like you guys with other friends, you'd be like Cory, like not to boot boast yourself. But there's probably some validity in there, because you're not doing something you should be doing as far as executing and laziness or whatever it may be. But then there's the other piece that's like, dude, you've literally in six years, you've gone from a director, director, VP, and you've built an entire sales team with the last organization built partner for us from the ground up, like there's something to be proud of, don't let it go to your head, you know, obviously, but remember, your wins. We just don't remember a wins. Unfortunately, I think no, I'm not saying this is just a male thing. I just think males don't talk about this stuff. And you see the suicide rates are increasing specifically in the males. And I want to help stop that if I can communicate it. around mental health or even physical health, Mike, I went through some health stuff for a year that didn't tell anybody about some of my family. And it was like, the most mental draining the most damaging place I've ever been in my life while I was working a full time job while I was supporting my family as a sole. sole provider, right. And I learned a lot there of saying like, Screw that, go talk to some people, like show some vulnerability, they're not going to laugh at you not going to point fingers, they're going to pick you up, they're going to support you where you need to be supported. So they anyways, tangent by like, super passionate about that. Because I think we need to talk about as a whole.
Jason Yarborough 28:10
It's a it's a perfect answer. I love it. And we're like, we're this journey started for you like we're had, how'd you start with this journey? And how do you encourage others to go about that, like starting that journey for themselves?
Cory Snyder 28:25
Yeah, I think it actually came from other individuals, friends that came to me, and actually say, I wasn't even. I wouldn't say man enough, but I wasn't even opened to even sharing the solos. It's almost, because when you when you when you say this is your problem, you're accepting it. And there's a level of fear of accepting I have a problem, right? So when you get to that point, you say, Okay, I have a problem. So I had other individuals come to me and say, I'm struggling with this. And we're friends. And I'm like, bro, so am I, like, let's talk through this come up with a path is how that communication has figure some of that out. And that's really, I think, where it came from. And at that point in time, I was like, screw this. I don't care like what people think about me outside of my friends, like I do care. Like if people want to judge me for having mental illness conversation, then screw you go away, you know, but otherwise, you have all these other people that I know are true friends, they're gonna back me up and they're gonna join and I couldn't believe like, the post. Two of those posts got a bunch of people that I'd never talked to before. And now I'm connected with right and hopefully and I and wholesale meaning back to one person. That's all I really care about. But
Jason Yarborough 29:33
yeah, yeah, I love that. And I had to almost 10 years ago to the day like I had a very similar kind of thought my experience was a lot rougher to figure that out. I'm, uh, you know, I have to learn the hard way. And self worth self love and just kind of universal went up for yourself was kind of an issue that I had to address for myself and how I talk to myself and kind of bring myself into, you know, the king theory, once once I figured that out, like the whole world began to change, you know, shortly after that is when I met Sam, and I don't think that could have happened without going through that, that whole, you know, set of issues and figuring things out. And I think it's a very relevant talk to the work that we do. Because quite a lot of times, partner people sit on an island, people don't understand the work we do, they don't understand what we're bringing to the table, we're not feeling understood. You know, we're not, you know, crushing some numbers and hitting those pipeline goals and everything else like, oh, you know, partners don't work. So like we're feeling we're not feeling validated in our work half the time, probably more. So. You know, that's why I think probably, you know, communities like partnership leaders and others that are out there now for partnerships has really taken off, because we've got people who understand and talk about it. And so like, the ability to, to bring your whole self into this role, like you, I think you've got to have, you know, some some foundation of this to be a partner person.
Cory Snyder 30:59
Oh, you have to mean, you beat up?
Sam Yarborough 31:02
Well, no doubt. And I mean, what I was just gonna add, there is a thing, having, being able to talk about this stuff, you said it, but it makes you human. And at the end of all of this, we're building relationships with other humans. And so in order to be successful in your role, you kind of have to break down these barriers that we set for ourselves, in order to be relatable with other people. And it's not unique to men, I think men struggle with it through different lenses than women. Do.
Jason Yarborough 31:31
We just heard it better. Yeah.
Sam Yarborough 31:34
Yeah. Or maybe don't, yeah, you don't feel safe talking about it, or you don't have the right groups to talk about it with, you know. So I think as a community helping just each other, we're all humans, gender aside, we all deal with the same stuff. And you know, I applaud you for taking the effort in the first steps in kind of breaking down those barriers first for you. But then opening up and allowing other people in, I think it's needed more and more.
Cory Snyder 32:05
Yeah, there's the thing that was going around that was like, normalized, telling your friends you love them. Right. And why not a big believer that I'm a hugger, I hug everybody. And that's the first because I love hugs. So
Jason Yarborough 32:18
say, you and I are kindred souls. Cory Schneider. This is true. Yeah. We were messaging earlier about being crier. So like, I'm also, you know, no, I'm not ashamed of it. I'm a crier. I'm a very vulnerable person. You know, so I'm okay with that. So, this whole self worth whole self thing, you know, apart from posting on LinkedIn about like, how are you bringing this into the job and into your, your daily life? You know, from the nine to five?
Cory Snyder 32:52
Yeah, it's kind of like, at the end of the week, I try to have like, a moment where I'm like, Okay, what did you accomplish this week? Right. But not just professionally. Right. So like, we created a my wife and I created, I wouldn't be considered like a vision board. But it's like, what are the things we want to accomplish this year, personally and professionally. And so there's like this tent check, if you will. Like, at the end of the week, I try to remember Fridays, I bought a majority of my Friday, and part of that Friday is prepared for the next week. But it's also completely something I needed to complete this week. And then it's also going through all the stuff that was completed this week that I meet that I should report on, right? And so it's kind of understanding like, hey, that relationship that was dead, I was able to kind of recover that we now have a conversation and haven't had a conversation for a year. That's a win. Right? We we've been able to work with HubSpot. Now. We're part of this sales pilot, like that's a massive win. We just got our first referral from this agency in three months, whatever, right? Like trying to figure out what those wins are, personally or professionally and then also personally, right. Like, I didn't blow up on my kids this week. No, yeah. Yeah, goals, exactly. Goals, it'd be like, like, I sat down and had one on one time with my daughter talking about life, and, you know, kind of what she's going through, right? I have, I have five kids and the ranges, they just range from, she's gonna be 20 this year, all the way down to eight. So I have this really cool experience where I get to see these, this different mindset in the world. And they're different conversations, and they're all enjoyable, like we want them to, I'm helping her learn how to read the other one. I'm like, you have a boyfriend now what the heck's going on? Like, you've been smart? You know, it's, it's like what? Like, today, she she got, she was going to work and work double shift, and she worked two hours and they sent her home. So I'm like, bro, you gotta find another job. You know, yeah, you need to find one that appreciates the effort that you're putting in. So it's like this cool thing where it's like, at the end of the day, I can sit down and I can say, here's what I accomplished. Personally, here's what I can accomplish professionally, be able to, but at the same time as a parent, you also are in your head like, I shouldn't have yelled at them. I shouldn't have On that, right? So you always have these negative things going back at you be like, I need to be a better parent, when you just add literally 30 minutes in a week. You were you lost your cool, and the other 10 hours, you freaking kicked ass? And you're just like, why did why think about the 30? Right? The kids for my kids forget about it, right, but they don't read it all the other things that I do with them. So now that now we're transitioning that personal stuff that like, that's what I do is every Friday, I try to have just that come to Jesus kind of conversation with myself around what I was able to accomplish and what I got done, and have like a real conversation that I use my time effectively, and so on is that that helps.
Sam Yarborough 35:38
You kind of talked about this with like, your, your golf trip in June? Or, you know, I'm gonna go here in a second, but your relationships with your wife and your kids? Yeah. Do you have any accountability partners outside of your family that you are calling on to like, so you're not carrying this burden on your own, that you're working with people on?
Cory Snyder 36:01
Yeah, mostly, it's just friends here and there. So I have like a core group of like, five or so that I would say because I mean, you there's tons of I have tons of friends, right? We all have tons of friends. But we have our core group that's like, individuals, you can talk about anything with, right? And, you know, obviously, there's some that are in the industry, which helps, because then you have this balance check and be like, you know, ARB, what do you do today? What do you do this week? Yo, what did what I don't know, Cory? What do you do this week? So you have this cool temp check? And you also can you can check to see are you on the right path? Like is where the way the world evolving? Are you on the right path? So to answer your question, yes, I have them both on the personal and professional side of people that I can that I try to connect with on a regular basis. Even if it's just to say, Yo, yeah, you know, bro. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And for me, personally, it's selfish is for me to like,
Sam Yarborough 36:57
well, it goes back to what you said first, like, it's probably doing just as much for them, if not more, you just don't know it. Yeah.
Jason Yarborough 37:05
Yeah, I mean, as much as you want to be seen other people's want to be other people want to be seen in help. Right. And they want to know that their relationship is mutually beneficial and reciprocal. And I love what you just said about like, just accountability and checking in with, with your peers. Right? How do we, you know, as partner leaders who do sit on an island help each other become more accountable to the work we're accomplishing. And you got to hold each other up? Right? What are your what are your goals with your partner program this quarter? Cool, let's, let's work on those together, at least keep an accountable and yeah, we coach each other to success. I mean, there's a lot to that.
Cory Snyder 37:41
Yeah. And I would also say now that like, my wife has no idea for the most part, even though I've been in this for a long time, she has an idea, right? But she's still supported. Like, if you like the Arby's, you guys are literally a powerhouse, which is Impressive, impressive to see how you guys have been able to balance out with kids and life. But it is true. Having somebody that you can lean on that understands you and understands your problems, or understand your concerns and all that kind of good stuff, whether they know about the business or not so relevant, their ability to listen, to be able to add some color there as far as like, Hey, I, you know, I heard you do this, or I heard you saw this or Hey, blah, blah, blah, or whatever it may be having those individuals as well as a significant other is extremely powerful as well. I mean, I can only imagine the conversations you guys have, you probably try not to talk about talking about work, because then it becomes like,
Unknown Speaker 38:30
it gets boring. I'll tell
Speaker 2 38:32
you that much. The that's I mean, now it's such
Jason Yarborough 38:36
it's hard not to talk about it. Yeah, I'm not just Boris and I'm just fine. And the podcast now is keeping it fun and learning and growing together and figuring out you know, what other people are doing. So, something new to talk about. I'll believe it. I'll wrap this segment up, I just kind of put out a PSA for those that are, you know, got to feel like they're on an island need somebody to talk to I think the three of us here would be more than happy to you know, fill out a DM a Slack message or your you know, party leadership you there or whatever it might be like, if you're feeling like you need someone to help you out you're feeling alone or need some accountability or whatever it might be. We just talked about like, wow, it means man reach out to us. Like I'd be more than happy to, to have this conversation every single day with someone new.
Cory Snyder 39:21
No judgement here.
Sam Yarborough 39:23
Second, third that motion. Okay, so let's let's shift we've kind of talked about this a little bit. We can hear your kids in the background. You have five of them. As you've mentioned, that is no joke. We only have
Cory Snyder 39:39
two. Yeah, that's why I'm so good at commission plans and partner programs.
Sam Yarborough 39:45
I mean, seriously, probably. Very, very high motivation. Um, so I want to just talk about how you manage having a successful career but also prioritizing the relationships with your five kids with Your wife, from the outside looking in being a husband and a father seems to be absolutely number one for you. But yet you continually show up as a leader in your career in the space. Talk about that.
Cory Snyder 40:16
Yeah, I mean, for the most part eight to five. Send also has me, right for the most part. At the end of the day, like when I, when I grew up, my my parents weren't necessarily there to support me in my activities, as government our two jobs right to support his families who was six in my family, right. So I didn't really have that support function. So when I, when I grew up, I had my, I had a rule that I would be at every single event that I can be at, for my kids. One year, I flew home on my son's birthday, just like literally flew out to Canada, had a did an event and then left halfway through that event flew home so I could be home for his birthday. Because it was that because it's not important to me. And that sounds like with with my kids, I've been to every dance competition. In the dance studio. They do dance pretty much five, five times a week. I'm at the dance studio and watching them when COVID hit I was even doing the dances with them during class. You know, it's his videos. Probably. We just did the dad stance for the company recital and I was part of it. It's like, I want to be involved in my kids lives as much as possible. And to and obnoxious, probably setting. I think initially, my kids were annoyed by by how involved I was because I would be like, I'm the loud dad. I'm the proud dad, like if you if you were watching my kids do a dance competition. And you were watching it online, you would hear me We know you're there. Yes, you know, and it's because I'm like, I want them to know I'm there I am for you. I'm with you. And so for me that was a big move for me is like I will be at every single major event at minimum that you have in your life. And I will always whether it's sports, whether whatever it is. And then on top of that, like my wife and I have made a rule that we go out every weekend. Every Friday or every Saturday, religiously we will continue to date. And if we have to find babysitters great. We will luckily enough our kids are old enough to where we're at this point. We're at the school pivotal point where they can watch the kids ski I know. And we just did two weeks in Yeah, we just did two weeks in Europe to celebrate our 20 year anniversary. And we didn't have babysitters we just left him with a 20 year old and 16 year old.
Sam Yarborough 42:29
There is hope. Jason, you hear that? Yes,
Cory Snyder 42:32
there is hope. But we had to commit like my wife thought she was going to just have the breakdown of a century. And as a as a as kind of an idea of of how we're doing as parents. Our kids crushed it. They were totally fine. Handle life went grocery shopping did everything. And to me, I was like, oh, maybe we're doing something right? Absolutely. They can survive without us like to be gone. And we can go enjoy our relationship and travel and do all that kind of stuff. So yeah, that's that's been like a rule of ours over the last probably 15 years is like we go out every weekend. Like that's our time, even if it's grocery shopping, or the way it's still just us.
Jason Yarborough 43:12
Just something together. Yes.
Sam Yarborough 43:16
I also love that because you're breaking down the like, we have to go on a date and it has to be fancy and you have to get like go to the grocery store. That's fine. I think that's fantastic. I also love what you just said about setting boundaries a little bit and setting goals with your wife. I was listening to a podcast, I'm gonna mispronounce his name. Neil Pash, Rica. He wrote like, you know who this is?
I do I know the name. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And
in the podcast, he was talking about how he creates a family contract, which is kind of similar to what you've talked about. But it's like, I will not travel more than four days, a month, I will be home for all of my kids. And then I loved his perspective. Because you create a contract with everybody, you do business with him. So why wouldn't you do that for your personal life and hold yourself accountable to it? Like, these are the things I've said I'm going to do. And it's just as important, if not more that I show up for my family and my friends than I do for my business. So I applaud you. I think that's wonderful.
Cory Snyder 44:23
I'll leave this one last thing with you. To prove a point that, because I know we're all we've all been there, so I don't know. 10 years ago, so my oldest I was in, I was in the bathroom, get ready for work. And she comes up says that we're going to vacation tomorrow, right? And I said, Yep, she goes, Are you going on vacation? And I was like, What do you mean? She's like, are you going on vacation cuz you always worked during our vacation? Like, they literally was like a stab in the heart. And from that day on, I said, You know what, you're right. I'm going to shut it off. Or if I do, we'll do in the early mornings. are in the evenings when they're asleep? Or does it impact that if I need to get caught up or emergency happens, but that was like a stab in the heart of like, I work while we're doing vacation, so I'm not present. And so from that point on, I was like, Screw it. I don't care, though, I will bust my ass from eight to five. But outside of that, I'm gonna bust my ass for my family. Right?
Jason Yarborough 45:19
Yeah, you're there. How much of that? Do you do you bring into like, if you're so when you came to Sindo? So like, how much of that factored into to this be in the right place for you? Like, do you bring that up in conversations? So there's a lot of people out there looking for jobs right now? Like, how old are they get with establishing these boundaries before they even accept the job?
Cory Snyder 45:39
Well, it's interesting as you can listen for different things. So one interview I did. I said, What do you love about the company we're for? And they're like, Well, I first I said, dang, it's like six o'clock there on a Friday. And you're doing this interview? is like, yeah, that's not uncommon for us here. You know, we're hustlers. We're break down, like, red flag, not gonna happen. And then the second thing I said, What do you love about the company? And he said, I love the people, right? And he goes, so Okay, explaining, he said, why? Like, I didn't come here to make friends. You know, like, we all came here to get stuff done. And while I agree with that methodology, I've worked for companies where that created this unfortunate place to work for and the culture shifts that so you can listen for those things and kind of get an understanding of how they feel about work life balance, in so literally, that was like, I think, a 30 interview I had when I was talking with Sentosa, and I was like, I emailed him said, Hey, I'm not interested in they had recruited me and I was like, sorry, I just don't, I don't think you meet with my values in life. Like, I don't mind working here and they're late. But when it when the guy's like, this is a nor I'm getting stuff six or seven o'clock at night, like I got kids, I got other stuff I got to take care of. So to me, that's you can listen for those ask specific questions to get an understanding of what the response is going to be. And that's exactly what I was testing. I was testing culture and work life balance. But at the same time, I, I see that was somebody who has a job. So I also understand like, yeah, what other people are feeling is like, I'm going to take what I can get. And to an extent, I think, you know, I may I may be do, I would potentially do the same thing.
Jason Yarborough 47:19
Goes back to new sort of job, right? Like, you know, you're, I think you have to kind of come in this room with boundaries of what you want out of a job like his life's too short. And if we can tie this all back together bus Avenue, and just start building a new program, you're listening in the interview stage, you're listening, but also like you should have an ideal employer profile, an IEP was making the ball sports and his synonyms on this podcast, I like it. So going into who you need to start. You know, understanding that and you're listening. When that clicked and you understand it like then it aligns with your values and goals. And, you know, you can be successful there. Not only as a partner leader, but as a person. That guess should be feel like you can be successful as a person where you weren't a great.
Sam Yarborough 48:07
Okay, so we're almost up on time here. And we typically like to end these podcasts with it out of the norm. More fun question. So staying on theme, you're gonna stay on theme twice here. Jason and I have date night tonight. So Cory, what's your BDE? Best date night ever? What should we do?
Cory Snyder 48:32
Oh, man, you guys got a different scene in Montana though. So, um, because I was gonna say like, maybe some cow tip and
Sam Yarborough 48:42
I mean, that's very doable here.
Jason Yarborough 48:45
It's, it's, it's on the list. What's the temperatures like?
Sam Yarborough 48:48
Oh, it's
gorgeous at 80 and sunny. Okay.
Speaker 2 48:52
I'm thinking small hike. Picnic.
Jason Yarborough 48:56
It's exactly what we were talking about at lunch today. settled? settled. Love it. Yeah, maybe
Cory Snyder 49:02
with some bubbly, you know, actually, nevermind. Jason, you and you had to not drill like the actual
Sam Yarborough 49:07
branded bubbly
Jason Yarborough 49:08
cans of yoga. Yeah, like very bubbly and the frigerator so,
Cory Snyder 49:12
I'm a I'm a Kirkland fan. You know, so
Jason Yarborough 49:14
the st. Nice. Do you have do you have a Most Memorable Date of recent with your wife that you can share? And that's safe.
Cory Snyder 49:23
Yeah, I mean it's it's tough because we just spent two weeks and it's safe. Yeah. We just spent two weeks in Europe and it was it was just epic like walking around and doing the stuff we're able to see and but I would have to say from a joy perspective, see my wife's face. When we pulled up to the Airbnb in Amsterdam and we are below or Airbnb is a cow museum. And my wife is cow and my wife is infatuated with cows loves them. And so we walk up and her face she almost cry. Shoot, did you know that the so I would like to say I did. But I didn't know until like a couple of days before, but it was intuition. Right? Like, yeah, you just know the universe telling you something for sure. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. So that was probably I wouldn't say date but it was one of my most memorable moments was just seeing her fat excited and not happy. And then that then throughout throughout that it was certain things because she's Dutch descent. So it'd be like getting a postage overages or getting a Stroopwafel and certain things but yeah,
Jason Yarborough 50:33
that's about sending love and no, we've got to go to bat at the link to that Airbnb. Yes, this this has been so much fun. I've really enjoyed this conversation. Thanks for letting us go to some vulnerable places and talk about you know, self and worth and all that I think it's very valuable for us to to talk about and share as professionals and leaders. So it's been great having you man.
Cory Snyder 50:57
Thanks for asking those questions. Yeah, yeah, well,
Jason Yarborough 51:00
we have a whole nother podcast around Cory swing and misses because I'd love to hear some of those stories and kind of how he can learn from those. Yeah, no doubt there's plenty love you man. Thanks a lot. Talk soon. Bye Corey.
