What are the 3 I's of Nearbound, and how can you use them to drive pipeline?
Tom and Will discuss how to drive revenue using the 3 I's: Intel, Intros, and Influence.
They explain why partner managers should care about Nearbound and how to secure internal and partner buy-in.
Here are 3 takeaways from the show:
1️⃣ Streamline Communication: Utilize tools like Slack to collaborate between team members. Provide templates and clear instructions to save time and ensure clarity in requests. Use calendar invites to prevent delays.
2️⃣ Engage the Sales Team: Get involved with the sales team. Assign tasks that are efficient and quick. Follow the example of micro-dosing leads and providing clear instructions to keep your sales team engaged and motivated.
3️⃣ Nearbound Strategies: Explore the power of Nearbound in revenue generation through partnerships. Shift your mindset from traditional outbound and inbound methods to a holistic and strategic Nearbound approach.
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Highlights
- What’s not working with partner management? 5:23
- Use internal enablement. 6:51
- Engage salespeople with efficient, concise tasks. 8:00
- Template out engagement for effective communication. 18:00
- Setting the tone for meetings. 22:45
Transcript
Tom Burgess 0:03
Howdy partners, welcome back to another great rendition of the howdy partners podcast. This is Tom Burgess. And just two of us today, like crowd, but potentially biased opinion. But my favorite crowd, so just myself and will Taylor, how are you doing?
Will Taylor 0:23
I'm doing good momentum. I feel like the economy is coming back. Maybe that's my, like gross optimism, but it feels like things are happening. People are a little bit more cheery. You know, there's still the difficulties out there. But I heard some news that, you know, interest rates are doing, you know, whatever the positive thing is about interest rates. Yeah, sounds like good news. I'll take it at face value,
Tom Burgess 0:50
economy, you know, whatever it is, yeah, I'm just, I also feel like, well, I'm also really busy. So it's like, hard to even think about, I typically keep like politics, anything like big brain finance stuff out of the back of my mind, I can barely keep track of the dollars in my pocket. So be I agree. It summer months, man, like everyone's trying to get out and still stay busy. And I think that leads into a pretty good topic today, which is around enabling on revenue, but then more specifically, you know, talking about the idea of near bound, and what it means from both like a partner team and some of the tactics that you can really take or put into place today. And I would say, it's probably more a thought provoking episode than anything else, because near bound is still very new. And we were just talking about it earlier that there's a lot of like, I mean, organizations and sales teams that are near bound novices. But I think what we're going to talk about today is what do we think about when it comes down to like, if I'm a partner manager, why should I be listening about the near bound model or like the nearby movement? And when I'm bought into that, how do I also get both my partners and internal teams bought in around it as well. So we'll just let's kind of spiff on that. Which is, we know that outbound and you know, generating revenues is kind of tricky these days. So walk me through what your thought around like why this is an important topic to you, and why you're passionate about it. And kind of like what that means in in regards to like, what we can action?
Will Taylor 2:40
Yeah. So I think that the challenge that a lot of organizations have faced, obviously, we know that they're just trying to do more of the same of outbound inbound. And that simply just doesn't work as well as it did. And so you know, us partner people, we generally know that okay, partnerships is an efficient way to grow revenue. However, I, I would say that the cosell motion that has been talked about has been good enough for some people. But it doesn't capture all of the intricacies that you can actually actually leverage from the coastal motion. And that's where something like, treating it more like near bound is expanding it further than I need an introduction. And that's what is the interaction like I make to people, it's like, hey, customer of my partners, you know, here's my calendar link, because we were just introduced, like, you know, we've seen that before the motion itself, getting to that point, there's a decent amount of processes out there, but treating it from the perspective of not just getting an introduction, but I'm literally helping the salesperson have a robust list of opportunities that they know how to engage with. And it's not just this one to one introduction, it's a lot more holistic. And so I think this is that next evolution of the cosell process that is actually going to generate revenue. Because if you're able, as an example, to tap into your CEOs network, and maybe they're friends with another CEO, who's, you know, romantic partner is the VP of sales at another company that is near bound, and that's exactly the interaction that you'd be navigating. And luckily, there's actual step by steps and we'll talk about some of them today. And it's all through the lens of the salesperson because that's what salespeople care about. They're not going to listen to another, you know, Lunch and Learn that you do and then we can refund that, Tom but I think it's, it's time that the partner people really get hands on with that sales process and not let it go when the client is introduced to your A II, like that is not enough, especially nowadays you have to transfer trust and have more of a strategic approach to it. And that's what we'll get into today. But yeah, I would say anything that people tried before that already wasn't working is going to not work even more nowadays, because people are already overloaded with
Tom Burgess 5:34
information, you bring up a good point, which is like, I feel like anyone that's been in a partner management role in the past couple of years, and maybe using tech like, reveal or crossbeam. I remember first getting hands on it actually, like, I remember first getting access to cross beam as a partner. And I'm like, Oh, this is really cool. But like, what am I going to do with that? Like, yeah, I can see overlaps, I can see accounts, I can see, you know, shared customers or like shared prospects. But, and I guess thinking about it from more of like a channel or agency lens, it's, it's really hard to use that when there's so many different roles in an organization like, yeah, Director multimedia at an agency. But like, how that translates into like other overlaps, or companies that we have there, like, I just never, it never took off work. And then fast forward to working in partnerships and SAS and using cross beam reveal. Like, I still felt the same way. And maybe that's because I understood the value maybe like, or the non value of it, at least from like how it was explained or used on the partner side. But typically, it it. It never really led to like firm conversations. And I think what we're trying to get across here today is that we're trying to change that in a way where it's like, begin to have conversations around it and begin to think about what that does from like a process standpoint, or how partner managers or partner people remain close to like the the referral process, instead of it being kind of like your finish line, hey, I got a lead to sales. Let's see if I can close it, it should almost be your start, which is, oh, great, we got to lead into sales. Let me now begin my motion. Now, when it comes down to what you were talking about, which is lunch and learns, I think there's two sides of this. And we I don't, can't remember, can't remember if I alluded to it earlier on. But it's important to grass near bound, whether you're taking one piece of what we're talking about today or all of it, that there is a piece of external enablement, meaning that you are continually enabling and training your partners on what strategies you're taking on, which could be nearby, it could be something else. But more importantly, you need to continue have internal enablement, conversations with your sales team with CX, etc. And so to me, Lunch and Learns have never necessarily taken off in terms of you're talking to people, you're like you're trying to train at Mass like, half the time you don't even buy him lunch like I did. We're calling it a lunch and learn but like, hey, go get food from your fridge like now that's not what it is. But more importantly, it's like, start start asking and having sessions or enablement sessions internally, that allow sales to play a role in building this out versus you building it out and telling them how it's going to be great. And what their what what they're going to do,
Will Taylor 8:43
just like the information dump tactic, where it's like, hey, here it is, it's like the those presentations. I mean, we all know that they suck. But I mean, even for, like the premise of this podcast, where it's like, it's not just here's the information, it's here's the information, and here's what you do. And that's why we always try and add like the actual thing at the end. And, you know, you can do it in five minutes. Like that's the ultimate goal. And that's exactly how salespeople operate. They don't want the information, like I'm sure they'll absorb some of it, but at the end of your lunch and learn, they're gonna go back to what they're doing, which is very quick tasks of cold calling cold emailing, or you know, sending that email sending that Slack message putting that proposal together, etc, etc. Like, they are very quick task focused, and you know, they love to be efficient and 30 minutes of view, just talking at them is not efficient for them. So, engaging them is is a lot different. And this is where, you know, we can start talking about what are the actual steps for doing that. I'll give you an example. I started working with some AES, I know AES are busy. In my mind. I'm always like, I cannot add more to their plate. Unless if it's going to be like a five to 10 minute task at most. So, you know, I'm not going to meet with them, I'm going to Slack them, I'm going to make them a video and it's going to be short, it's going to be to the point like, I'm going to save their time, because that's the most precious thing to them. And they're going to protect it as well. And so with that, you know, how do you make that easy, and get them very excited, while you say, This is what I did, hey, here's a list of 100 accounts that are overlapping with our partner, choose 10 to 15 of them. And I will get you introductions to people that can help you either get an introduction more intel on the account or, you know, move any kind of deal forward. And so immediately, they're thinking, Okay, I have to do something. But what I put at the end of the ask is, this will take you five minutes, like there's not a lot, it's not 1000 accounts, it's not, you know, 500, it's 100, they're already in your prospect list you already know you want after them. So go in and choose your top 10 to 15. And it'll take you a short amount of time, because you're gonna skim through it, you're gonna go boop, boop, boop. And like, there you go, task is done. So they think, Oh, wow, I didn't have to do anything too intensive there, I did the thing. And now I'm going to benefit from it. And well said, he's going to do the rest of the work. And like that, right there, if someone came to me as an AE, and they said, Hey, I have a list of hot accounts, I'm going to do some work for you. But just let me know which ones you want me to prioritize. Of course, I'm gonna go for the ones that I think I can score the biggest the ones that are been the hardest to get into, and that it already feels like it'll be a bit of a weight off my shoulders. So the way that you frame it is really important. And then the way that you position it from like an actual, you know, what is the task is really important as well.
Tom Burgess 11:51
Yeah, so like, we list microdosing, because I think you're talking about, and I think more importantly, it's, it's one of the one of the ideas that you and I were talking about before this is that, if you can build the repetition, like the, the idea of like CO selling, and the referral motion can be so variable at at every single stage, like different partner, you like different partner, and what they know about your product, or how they position your product. So like some partners, like you know what, here's a lead, take it. Other partners would be like, Hey, I've got a lead from you have already like talks about your products, sold them on your product, like, my point there is that if you start to build very standard or consistent behaviors, both externally and internally, you're, you're efficient efficiencies go up, when you might not think about that, like, oh, what efficiencies but it does. And so now take it a step further. So like, we'll goes to an A E, with a hot lead list to microdose on those leads, get the list back introduced to get introduced like the introduction, Inception idea, but then like maybe two months later, you do the same thing with that eight. And they're like, awesome, I've done this before. I know what was going at. I know the steps along that process. And I think tying this back to the idea of internal enablement, and not just telling over a lunch and learn is actually showing. So you know, I really love the idea of like, instead of just kind of like walking them through this process over 30 minutes with 40, he's not even paying attention. Why don't I just show that, like, show it, and I'm going to bring them these leads. And I'm going to help explain what we're trying to do what I need from them and what I'm doing. It sets off the sales motion in a much more competent view than anything else. Now, there's still a lot to be said in terms of like a II to partner manager to partner to prospect relationship, but that that's a whole nother Can I think what you're trying to do is reduce the amount of variables in the middle. And of course, partner managers know that you can standardize everything on the front side, how you get leads, in what the intake process is, even sometimes, like, how much can your partner talk about your product, like are they certified to be able to demo your product, so like, there was a whole set on the front side that that might be out of your control.
Will Taylor 14:17
Think of it as bulk actions of something that's very easy to do. So it's not this strategic account review where it's, you know, line by line, and you're sitting with the ad on your team and the ad on the other team, you're going through 15 accounts and you're talking about all things like that's so much no one's gonna remember anything. It's bulk of quick actions. So the bulk of hey, here's those 100 accounts, choose 15, great, boom, boom, boom, and then you can bring the shortlist to the partner manager. And then you can say to the partner manager, Hey, can I get some quick context on these accounts? They can sit down again, take 10 minutes, go through their CRM, maybe 15 minutes If it's Salesforce, because it takes a little bit longer to load, but then they can look at like the health score of the accounts, you know, when did they renew last? Are they really engaged? What tier are they on? How much do they pay with us like, they can quickly capture whatever information that you think you need to arm the AAE as best as possible. And it's the same thing. It's a bulk list with a quick action of quick review. And as long as it's clear what information is being gathered, then they're not going to think, Oh, this is an hour long task, they're going to think I can do this in the 10 to 15 minutes. And so as when you're thinking through it like that, that's going to have people take action more with you. And the other thought here that I have is, think like a salesperson, you know, you're always selling to the your internal members, this is a good way to get your foot in the door, especially if it's the first time that you're engaging with them, show that it's going to produce value for them. And say that you're going to do a little bit more of the legwork. And make it such a simple task. It's like when you send a cold email, you shouldn't be asking for someone's time right away and them to book 30 minutes, you should simply just try and get them to do a yes, no response. Same thing here, you know, instead of the yes, no, it's take the five minutes go through this list. And that is compared to you know, in the cold email, if you're asking for time, it's too much, just like with your AE, you're not doing an account review over 30 minutes, it's too much, they don't see the value yet. So try and create these bulk actions that are quick to do. And it's clear what's needed. For the outcome. Choose accounts, super simple, gather this info, super simple. And then from there, you're able to move the interaction forward, because you can say, Okay, well of the 10 or 15 accounts that we chose here are, you know, maybe the dates that are ideal for an intro, and then maybe to our turn risks or whatever, so you're not going to introduce them, you immediately know, okay, so we're not just going after 100 accounts, because you could have started with that list and been like, okay, let's, you know, go after all of them. But now you're much more focused on where is the lowest hanging fruit because that's what that he cares about. They don't want to go after 100 accounts, they're already doing that. And they frickin hate it, they don't want to go through those lead lists, they want to go through the warm accounts. And that's exactly how you would narrow it down. And that's when you can start doing the introduction and whatnot, which we can chat about
Tom Burgess 17:38
your your paring down paring down paring down. And, you know, like the the lead list microdosing that the AE does, then the partner manager comes back and almost does like an even further development. And I think one cool exercise that depending on maybe more more specific to like channel partner managers that are working with agencies or referral partners, it would be cool to also do the same with your partner, not like I know that kind of overlaps with like, what we're gonna talk about next, which is like a much more like, not saturated, but a much more like strategic introduction. But it would be it would be cool to try it on the flip side to where it's like, I'm going to take three or four of these, and really talk to my partner about this and get a sense. And granted, we're going to do that after but I wonder if the reverse works, where it's like, can I go to my partner, and talk about this overlap of 100 companies and almost then take it a step further and get it to the AE?
Will Taylor 18:34
I would say so. Yeah. I think he could definitely do that.
Tom Burgess 18:36
Yeah, why not? So in okay, we've got the lead list pair down. Partner Manager looks at it. This looks great. What do you do, then?
Will Taylor 18:47
That's where you are, hopefully already connected in Slack or wherever you're having communications wherever AES like to communicate best. That's where you, you don't just say, hey, a II talk to this AE about this account. That's like, that's okay. Because you've at least whittled it down a little bit. But what I would say to take it a step further is template out the ask. They get a lot of slack messages every day, they get a lot of LinkedIn messages, lot of emails, they don't want to think about what they have to do. So tell them what to do. And this is where you can template something like, you know, hey, II or CSM, let's say on our side, let us know the status of this account for this AE, who would like what would you like Intel influence or introduction? Tell us what you need. And tell us what the status is on your side. Are they a prospect? They haven't responded yet. Are they in an open opportunity? Do you need help with navigating, contracting? If you already have that information, listen it out. But if not prompt the AE, or the CSM to give those pieces of information, so that it's in, you know, let's say that slack thread. And then also in your ask again, you should template this out, have whoever should be giving their calendar to give their calendar so that their response is not, hey, here's the info. And then the AE comes around and they say, oh, okay, great, you know, here's where we're at. And then you wait two days. And then the CSM responds, oh, yeah, here's my calendar, let's chat, like, get that information right away, so that no one is then losing that message in the oblivion of the threads and whatnot. And they're, they know exactly what they need to be doing in that interaction and what they need to be giving, and what the next step is. So if I'm an AE, I'm not going to leave that message unread. And wait, I'm going to give my information, I'm gonna give my calendar, and then I'm gonna go back to doing whatever I need to do, I pop in, I pop out, just like with that list, I should be able to pop in five minutes, take action pop out with this message, it'll be even quicker, I pop in, give my context, and then I leave my calendar, and then I pop out. And then it's going to start the motion of Okay, now we actually have a facilitated interaction with the information that's needed. And what I would venture to say as well is when that is booked, as a partner manager, prepare them, the AE only knows usually how to sell their own product, they usually are selling to people who do not have this additional context of your partners. So prepare them with three bullet points, not a one pager, but three bullet points, talking points, even questions that they can ask, that are related to that prospects world with the context of the partner. So for example, maybe it's a tech partner, you can say, bullet point one, here's the value of our two technologies working together, bullet two, here's a question you should ask. Well, it three, here's like a pain that they experienced in their world. Talk about those things, as an AE. That's all I would need. And that's all I would prefer to have as well to enter into that conversation with a question I can ask relevant context to their world and joint value as to why the heck are we even talking right now? Well, it's because of this joint value you're using, you know, this partners software today, we can work together. So in short, template out the engagement when you're making that when you're facilitating that introduction, and then make sure that they're enabled with easy to consume information that they can bring to that call, that they're not just going to forget, or a resource that they're just never going to look at.
Tom Burgess 22:45
Yeah, I keep, that's awesome. So like you are, as a partner manager, you are not popping in and popping out, you are the, you are the navigator to this entire ship. Whereas you've got captains that sleep every few hours and come up and come back down. So like, you you really kind of like maintain the integrity of the relationship. And I what you didn't mention, and I'm not sure what your thought on this is like, I still I still firmly believe that that like whether a e a e providing Intel to your team, or your sales member, I still like the idea of having some like, introduction, potentially from them, just to kind of like prime the conversation. So you're not just completely blasting them I understand like that, that might add some like ruffles. And that's pretty traditional. But I do think I'd still believe in the power of like, hey, you know, John from XYZ, introduce me to you like whatever. And I on top of that, I think about it. Because I from the agency side, I think about that lesson that I that makes perfect sense, like tech to tech, you know, like, we hand off intellectual property information gathering. on the agency side, I could see it working in the same manner. But maybe with a couple of caveats, which is, the partner is most likely going to want to be live on the call with an introduction. So once again, it comes back to the the principles of setting everyone up for success. And this is where I think the partner manager should leverage the idea of setting the tone meeting, if the partner is going to be involved in any point in the introduction live or not, who is responsible for what? So, you know, in the three bullet points, it might be on your ad to deliver that when you're speaking with the prospect. But if the partner is on line, it could be more powerful if they do it too, because they've already set the tone in a lot of scenarios. This is not the first conversation about your technology. So it's really you need to be very close in into with partner organization to understand what's already happened. And what can we do now, and just who is really to me, it's like, who is it's going to? Who is the message? Who will say the message that will resonate the best. And I actually love the idea just kind of jumping back a little bit like the three eyes, just thinking about the efficiencies gained around, like, being able to enable your partners on that, like, if nearby and is something that you are going to dive in, face first into the pool with, then you need to prepare your partners for that. So when I'm reaching out to partner, and I'm requiring Intel, they know what I need. And so like, you kind of touched on it, which is like templatized, your your actions templatized, your communication. So it should be pretty straightforward. But I think just even taking that a step further is like backup, have a conversation with your partners just about the ethos of your town, and why it's important and how it's more effective. Because that, to me, Will is what I was missing. When going through crossbeam. And talking to partners. That's what I was missing when I was a partner as to why crossbeam revealed like the starting points like the really like the budgeting seed, what I was missing there. So kudos to you. And your moustache.
Will Taylor 26:10
Thank you. So let's summarize. I'll summarize quickly, what are your actual steps as a partner manager, number one, come with actionable people and accounts to the people that you hope to engage so that they can clearly see the path to success. So 100 accounts, bring it to them, say, Hey, you're going to take five minutes to determine 10 to 15 accounts that I'm going to get
Tom Burgess 26:33
weedless microdose, we're going to we're going to make that happen. I like
Will Taylor 26:36
I like that framing lead microdosing Yep. Then get context with the other partner manager, get them to again, sit down for this bulk list, go through specific information that you think would be relevant, help the client, when did they sign up? What tier are they on? Are they a promoter, etc. And then from there, coordinate the introduction in the place that people like to chat most. Maybe it's slack, maybe it's a different place, connects the person that is on the account the CSM with the AE, and template out what that engagement should entail. Hey, CSM, give us a quick status on this account. Hey, AE, tell us which of the three eyes of near bound you need. And what's the status of the account on your end. Both of you list your calendar link whoever lists at first put it in so that you can efficiently schedule that time. And here are the three bullet points that you need to effectively have this conversation, not a one pager. So as a partner manager, in the same vein, take 10 minutes to bullet those out. Make that your standard process. Maybe even copy and paste a specific message that you template out into Slack. Whenever you're you are making those introductions, make it easy for yourself. But go through that make a checklist and then you're going to make forward motion towards that revenue. Because without you then you're just again going 100 accounts, where do we go? Let's go after all them and it's just chaos and you're going to waste people's time and they're going to forget about what you talked about, especially on that lunch and learn.
Tom Burgess 28:14
Yeah, move the start line back. Focus on the revenue. Love it. Well, thank you all for listening to another episode. We'll great chat today and we will catch you all soon. See
