PartnerUp #99 - The Ultimate ROI - Investing in Relationships with Justin Zimmerman

What is up PartnerUp!?

Everyone knows at least one person who's just "that guy" or "that girl" - the one who seems to know everyone, talk to everyone, and cross paths with everyone!

It's got to be a personality trait, right?!

Well, not always. It can be learned.

Today's guest, Justin Zimmerman, is one of the most active partner pros on LinkedIn, and he's only been in the game for a year.

Justin is the former Director of Partnerships at Salesmsg (#1 Hubspot SMS App), the founder of Partner Playbooks, and a valuable part (and partner) of the PartnerHacker community.

In less than a year, Justin drastically transformed his career and life by leaning into the partner ecosystem.  In today's episode, he shares his journey from marketing into partnerships, as well as how he's successfully managed to undergo massive changes in a little less than a year.

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And check out Eric Sangerma's key takeaways from today's podcast.

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Full transcript:

Jared Fuller  0:11
All right, what is up partner up? This is gonna be a fun one. Because we have someone that's somewhat of a partner hacker partner up kind of legend on the show. Isaac, who we bring in in the partner up guest chair today.

Isaac Morehouse  0:28
Today we have with us named one of crossbeams top 10. Oh, my call was on social media in 2022, the man who won the first ever supernode crossbeam partner hacker contests competition, IRA, and I'm saying too much stuff. You know, the guy you know who I'm talking about? Mr. Justin Zimmerman. Welcome to the podcast.

Justin Zimmerman  0:48
Pleasure to be here, guys.

Isaac Morehouse  0:50
We I think we owed you a podcast episode, because you won that little challenge we did for supernode last year. And somehow we forgot that. So this is us making good.

Justin Zimmerman  1:01
You guys have done so many great things over the last year, I just saw that post that went out by Will and so totally understand. And there's so many great things you guys have done for my life and my career since then. So you know, they say, it pays to wait. And so patience is a virtue.

Isaac Morehouse  1:18
Well, I'm I'm really excited about this episode, because it's so in my wheelhouse, from what I've spent most of the last 15 years doing kind of around the career space and you embody, you kind of bring together this partnerships world, and this world of, you know, kind of like career stuff that I've been working in before. You just embody all the kind of principles that I've always been spent years talking with people about in terms of maximizing what I call their luck, surface area, maximizing career opportunity, maximizing the, the chances that you'll get more opportunities for other and better jobs, promotions, the ability to start your own thing, by kind of like engaging in a whole series of activities that a lot of people are afraid of. So I want to kind of dive in to what got you started on this journey of basically doing more than just saying, I'm going to do my job. But saying I want to actively share, learn out loud, contribute to the community, the industry that I'm in, so that I am more than just an employee where I work. But I'm also a known person within this broader community, like what what made you decide to start engaging in those kinds of activities?

Justin Zimmerman  2:33
Yeah, so at the heart, I'm a marketer, and maybe at the heart of my marketing, I'm a copywriter. And so I've just had a deep love for trying to find the right words that matter to the people I'm speaking to, to make an authentic, impactful conversation turned into something more. And so over the last 20 years, it's weird to say, but I'm at old at this point, it's even weird to say that I'm that old. When you say that, then you're that old. That's, that's how it works. I had realized I was trading my time and my money, my my time, for maybe not the best ways to invest that. And so there was a period of time where I realized that no one's ever going to pay me what I'm worth working in somebody else's value creation systems, just the economics behind it don't work out, no one can pay you the maximum your worth, because they have to make some sort of margin off of the time and money and effort and resources. And so I knew that a long time ago. But I also knew that I didn't know my own worth until a certain while ago, when I realized that if I started taking the systems, the tools, the energy, the relationships, the connections, the project management, and started focusing, instead of trying to help position other people's products, services and companies for this their best highest use that I started taking that model and focusing it on myself as the product or service. And so being motivated by not having a single point of failure in my income not having a single point of failure in my social connections. Because if we really look at the amount of time that we spend in our jobs every single day, that is our social sphere in some way. And that when we lose our jobs, which I've done before, not only do we lose our financial stability, but we also lose our social stability. And we have to go back and rebuild that. And so last year, right around the time that no one really knows this story, so this is kind of the first time I get that sell it but I was at the end of the road at a partnership job that I had. And it was one of those classic on the island by myself and worried scared and alone and not knowing that there was this other big world out there a partnership, people going through the same thing and when my job ended, slash asked to leave kind of ready to go. You guys had presented that opportunity to go to Supernote and win that contest. Ever since that moment, where I doubled down on going to the market to create a opportunity for myself, to help get myself out there, maybe I was going to get a job, maybe I was going to start my own thing, you guys provided that opportunity to get out there. And finally have the courage to take what I had been thinking, and go for it. And so, you know, having the lack of resources created a necessity, as they say the necessity is the mother of invention. And so that's kind of where I had arrived at and where I'm at right now,

Jared Fuller  5:38
we'll just Justin, this is a quick comment, Isaac, this is going to be the Isaac Morehouse episode. I love this topic as much as him but he's definitely he's got more on me on this one. Justin, I just wanted to say that, like our philosophy on all these things, is very much aligned. Because I think I technically paid you, these of you that travel in the you experience before I take any money from partner hacker, right. So like, investing in relationships and calling that shot like, that seems like a really stupid idea to like, take what very little money we had was that may, like the site was not even a month old. Right part of Ecuador, would have very little money, we have like, Hey, we're gonna pay for a plane ticket and hotel, you know, to make Crosby more famous, like crossbeam paid for us that like that. Those relationships and those things, this is an example of what I call compound interest. Justin, you and I have social capital, we have the ability to work together over a longer period of time. And that's what's so sad about so many sales roles is that it starts and stops every month, quarter or fiscal year, those relationships don't stay with you. And I think partner people have a very interesting opportunity. I mean, that's how I started partner hackers, I had built partnerships that drove long term value, and I'm still talking to those people today, like I built a partnership with Clearbit, I just got off the phone with Robin, the CEO of Clearbit. So completely agree with your philosophy on these things.

Justin Zimmerman  7:07
I just have so much to add to that just the that's the one big thread I discovered is that and Scott Pollack maybe said it better than anybody, but he's like you, you own your relationships, and you rent them to the companies you work with. And I have not found anything better, more true of a definition to what true social security is than the network and strength of the relationship that you can build. And very uniquely in the partnership world, where you might go to a different company, they might go to a different company, but with if it's within the same ish industry, you actually like can continue to expand and compound those relationships. And so look, when I left, like I took those relationships with me, and they continue to grow. And it's allowed me because of those relationships, that sphere of influence, to not have to really think about getting another job. Now, I'm not quite out of that entirely thinking about it yet. But it's really because of the nature of the relationships. And the level of trust, which is something you guys just continually talk about is high level relationships, and high levels of trust, equal the ability to go off and try and do risky things that allow you to be the better of the beneficiaries in the income outcome streams that you normally sell your time to companies for.

Isaac Morehouse  8:24
So here's the here's the actionable takeaway on social capital. Anytime you are in a position where you are able to invest in others, do it, do it as much as you can, because you're gonna hit a time where you need to go draw down on those accounts. And if you show up and you're like, hey, I need favors, hey, I need help. Hey, I just lost my job and you haven't invested anywhere. You're asking people to give you a loan, and you have no credit with them. Right? So I found this myself for the first 10 years of my career. All I did was invest social capital. I just said yes to as much as I could. I helped everyone I could I sent thank you notes, handwritten to people all the time, I had flowers delivered to anyone in the office who had helped me with stuff I like went out of my way. And guess what happened? I decided I wanted to launch a company in 2013. I had no it was bootstrapping it. I couldn't do half of the things we needed done. I couldn't build a website back then. It was a lot harder to build a website. Okay, so cut me some slack. I quit like logo design, building the program all these things. I went and I cashed in with some Hey, remember how I helped you get that one job? Would you help me build make a logo for my site? Hey, can I and I just traded favors traded social capital because that was the moment when I needed it. And right now if you're one of the people who's fortunate you're in a position where you haven't just lost your job. You're not out there like oh my gosh, I'm in a tight spot. Invest what even if you feel like you have very little to Jarrods point we started partner hacker. He had hardly any cash to work with. Right? We were so early. And he's like I got a crazy idea. Let's do this thing with crossbeam. We're getting crossbeam didn't pay us to do it, I think we might have split the cost like they give a free ticket. And we cover first class airfare and hotel. This is gonna be like several grand split

Jared Fuller  10:11
the cost Hold on Wait a second. We've we've paid for way more giving everybody a free ticket,

Isaac Morehouse  10:15
give him a free ticket. Yeah, okay. We're not calling you out schottlander, we probably we still love you. But it was like, even though we were in a position to be able to do that, even though like you could look at it in one way and be stingy and say we don't have the resources to do that. We could we could pull it off. And early on, like sending that signal again. So then what happens later when we're in a pinch? And we're like, oh, my gosh, we're like, pushing a deadline for some event we have. And we're trying to get more registrants and we're trying to guess who we're going to hit up. Justin, you have such an amazing network? Can you help us out a little bit here, buddy? We need a little help get this. It's like, easy peasy, right? So take that if you're in a position right now, where you have any ability to invest social capital and people do it be generous, it's gonna come back.

Justin Zimmerman  11:00
It's so the truth. I've been doing some, I guess counseling with people who are my network reaching out asking for just advice and direction. And the other day, adds to what you were saying, I think this week, I said, I've given until it hurts like, oh my god, I'm giving it I'm giving it I'm giving. And it's like when I get to that point, it's like, I know, I've reached like, the point in which it's going to start coming back to me. And so I know like there's people who are super busy, and it feels uncomfortable. But oftentimes it's that sign that it's like if you only give when you're feeling good, you're you're not really entering into that space in which social capital can compound like you guys did. You didn't have the money, but somehow you did it. And somewhere in the future, it came back. And so if you only act in your best interest when times are good. Well, there is an aspect to that, that I've seen where I've just over invested day by day, person, by person conversation by conversation, I'm exhausted, I've got other deadlines. But I just tried to make a little bit of space for people in the market in the community, in my network to do what they're asking for what they need. And so there was just that came out of the conversation, I think earlier this week, and I'm like, Yeah, you know what, it's not easy. But it's often at times where I wanted to take a nap or something like that. But it's a recognition app.

Isaac Morehouse  12:27
I got four kids on Thursday night, I just naps always sound amazing. Justin, you said something when we were before we hit record. It's a it's a phrase that I use all the time, I certainly did not create it. I don't even know where I first came across it but me incorporate it right? Everyone needs to think of themselves as me Incorporated, whether they work for themselves or work for a company or freelance or not? What what does that mean to you, when you adopt that mindset? You know, went back before you were working for yourself? What does it mean if you're an employee of company X, but yet you think of yourself as me incorporated as your own startup? How does that change what you do?

Justin Zimmerman  13:06
Yeah, I've I've had to really lean into that. And look at that I'm not an employee, and a company doesn't own me. My job at that company is to build the systems build the tools. And in my mind, I know I'm there to build really two things, great relationships and great models, because those are things that I can take with me, when I decide I want to go do something else. And whether the option is to go work at another company, or the option is to go start something on my own. Those are the two things that somebody working at a company is in the fortunate position of getting paid to create. And so if you're thinking that, what you do and what you say is just something that you imbue into a Google Doc or program into an app, and you're not taking notes, and documenting your own process. And I meet with people at really big companies, and these little coaching sessions that I create, I tell them what I'm doing. And I'm like, here's the simple answers document as you go open up a Google Sheet, take a screenshot of what you just did write a little note, and at the end of the year, you're going to have, I have 100, I had 167 slides with little notes about what I did and how I did it. So that way, when I left, I had a documentation of what I thought and what I did. So that's really if you start to put that lens on and you look at your work as this amazing opportunity to build this network to build these relationships and document what you're doing. If and when you decide to go or if you've already left to go back and resurrect and connect those people in those models. You're in a position to activate something that can finally turn yourself from being an employee into a corporation of yourself.

Isaac Morehouse  14:47
There's something counterintuitive, that people people really miss this probably because it's counterintuitive. The most likely way to get your next opportunity you As to very publicly go all in on your current opportunity, your current job, or whatever that is. And a lot of people miss this, like, if I'm in a job, I don't even know if I like it that much. I'm not sure if this is the role I want in the future. I'm not sure if I like this company, I just I don't know. So they kind of like, keep to themselves. When you when you learn out loud, and you very publicly become an ambassador for your company. People think they have this idea. Well, if I'm out there posting all day, oh, man, I just had a great meeting with my colleagues over here. Well, here's one of the things I love about this company and what we do, and I love about our customers, and blah, blah, they think well, everyone will associate with that company. And they won't know that I'm actually on the market. And I'm looking at other opportunities. It's the opposite. When people are recruiting, I've done this so many times, if I'm looking for a great data analytics person, I've had this happen before. Guess who my first go? Twos are the people who I see every day, passionately, excited, excitedly talking about the work they're doing at their current company. What I think is, man, they love their work, and they love that company. I want them to be like that for my company. I want them to show love for my company versus somebody who's hard that they're not findable. You don't know what they're up to. Or worse yet, they're complaining about their current role, hey, I'm looking for something different, because I don't really like the way that you know, my company does this or does it, nobody wants to hire that person, right. So like, this idea, you go all in on whatever you're doing. Even if you don't know, if you're gonna be there forever, be findable be discoverable, because you're learning out loud, and you're sharing, and you're publicly talking about, you know, hey, I just figured out how to do I mean, I've literally hired people in operations roles at the entry level, because they were publicly posting little videos, I finally learned how to do, you know, pivot tables in Excel. So I just recorded this little video, because I was so excited. And I'm like, that's the kind of person I want, they're learning out loud. They're excited, they're praising their current company. So like just just realizing that even if it's not where you want to be, if you're the best frickin employee, ever, and the cheerleader for that company, that's going to make you more attractive to everybody else, it's just one of those little one of those little secrets.

Justin Zimmerman  17:08
If you can demonstrate the solutions to the problems that your market or niche are experiencing, and you can do that on a consistent basis, I can't think of a better way to brand yourself as the go to person for ABCD. And so whether you're drawing in new talent to the company that you're currently working at is, hey, this person is high level person, I want to work with them. So you can be a magnet to your current existing job. From the partnership space, if you're demonstrating solutions, and how you're working with other partners that's going to attract other partners, and then reverses that if you're demonstrating to the market and you've got these solutions will, you know, don't be surprised when recruiters and CMOs and heads of sales and CRO start reaching out to you because they want to pick your ear. They want to ask you a questions about what you're doing. And I know Jared said things on this before where I've heard you say it's not necessarily the best product that wins the deal, the job the interview, the the the outcome, it's the best marketed, the one that's most visible.

Isaac Morehouse  18:14
Jared, I know you've had examples of people who have basically worked their way into opportunity just by being by being visible by learning out loud.

Jared Fuller  18:26
Oh, I mean, all over the place. Here at partner hacker in every single, previous or former past life, I mean, what's so interesting to me about this is your ability to focus on helping someone else to achieve your own objectives. It's the way that I've kind of framed this up Isaac is I've been talking a lot to some software companies I've been helping out, irrespective to partner hacker, by the way, like, sometimes I just held out C suite at random companies met with the CEO at a $2 billion company yesterday in person just to help them like no agenda didn't sell him anything. And the reason why I bring that up is if you can help people accomplish their objectives, and like insanely curious about what they're trying to accomplish. Whenever you can, whenever you can call on them. They're not just willing to like, show their favor are supportive, you know, they have something else. They have this trust that is palpable. It's like tacit knowledge versus, you know, like, oh, I read that in the book. It's like no, I experienced that. Like I've worked with this person. And I've seen that paid dividends so many times. So like by being visible what I'll give you an example. Let's say meeting with this person, doing the right follow up sending a couple introductions, and then posting a picture of our lunch day, you know, like on LinkedIn, and just say, Hey, we're so happy to help you, you know, today, Peter, blah, blah, blah, all for what? Like, what was the end game on, you know, going to lunch and helping out this executive at this company, it's like to be visible with other executives like that I want to be able to influence other executives of 2 billion $5 billion companies, and help them get to where they're going. So I've said trust comes from helping people reach their promised land. Like you're not a very trustworthy person, if you can't help people achieve what they want to achieve, like you need to find a different job, a different industry, different people. And that's where the challenge and the fun stuff lies, and then just go to it publicly talk about it. Right. Like, there'll be two stories that come from that meeting yesterday that I had, that will be lore that, you know, run a new cycle for at least a PhD. How about that, right? Like, at least a PhD, maybe a post, maybe a couple of LinkedIn posts, there will be two things that really come out of that, that are very interesting. In fact, one, I have to talk to you about the will actually be running an article on partner hacker on Tuesday. So I just really agree,

Isaac Morehouse  21:08
I got a question for you change gears slightly? What's something that comes very easy to you? That's really difficult for most people.

Justin Zimmerman  21:18
I can remember, everybody, you know, I have this memory of like, the conversation I had with you, when we were sitting down in Miami, at the end of the table of the night, when we just had the first night of catalysts. And we were talking about consistency. You know, I can remember the clothing that Jared was wearing at the partner con and how he had that new dress and setup with the bags in his hand and the shoes and you know, you know, how he's thinking about getting a house in Colorado. And, you know, I can think about, you know, we'll and our conversations around, you know, mental health and stability, you know, and so I've you know, and when I show up at events, I just have this like instinctual ability to, and even an email, I just I see people's names and I and I don't forget, like snippets of who they are and what they're about. And I just have this like, instinct to like, be impressed upon by what's important about others and who they are.

Isaac Morehouse  22:18
So I love that answer, because I can see that you have absolutely leaned into that and leverage that I asked that question, because somebody asked me that question about 10 years ago. And they were like, Look, do you want to figure out, you know, 8020 principle like, what do you want to focus your time on to shore up weaknesses are there like, there are things that you don't realize are valuable to the world, because they come easy to you. But to most people, they don't come easy at all, or wherever you find things that are really easy for you. But very difficult or terrifying for most people. That's your highest return and find ways to utilize those activities and create value with those activities. So interesting. You say that because I can see your this entire apparatus you have built this kind of me ink around Justin Zimmerman, so much of it is what you might call things that don't scale in the startup world. It's like your one to one, you got the book right there.

Jared Fuller  23:15
Hey, there's my there's my alma mater,

Isaac Morehouse  23:17
right? Like, like, You're the master of that, like, your brain is capable of things that most people have to offshore to like automated systems. And I know you use a lot of systems as well, but your ability to personally, and you've turned that into something really powerful. So that that question I asked Will Taylor when he joined our team, that same question, and he was like, oh, like I think for me, it's like, my superpower is people trust me really quickly and really easily. And that that comes easy to me and not to many other people, right? Like, that's a quote, ask yourself that question. If you're listening to this, and like, especially if you're in that career transition space, think about roles where those things that come easy to you the kind of things that you're like, oh, yeah, this is no big deal. It's not that valuable, but your friends are like, Are you kidding? I can't do that. I'm terrified by that. Right. I just think it's so cool to hear the way that you answered that.

Justin Zimmerman  24:09
Yeah, I remember like telephone numbers of my friends from middle school, you know, and we're in freakish

Isaac Morehouse  24:15
territory now.

Justin Zimmerman  24:16
Justin, yeah, no elementary school actually. Yeah, that's funny enough is uh, before there were spreadsheets at least, you know, in the 90s. When I got my first computer, I used to list out in numerical order I made like, like a four column roster in like 1992 of all my top 30 friends and it was first name, last name, telephone number and address and I just had it right next to my translucent when the phone ring it glowed in my bedroom. landline and so it was like just this little Rolodex of friends and people and I've been I've been kind of creating my own Facebook now that I think about it out loud since I was a kid and it's just like, you know people and who they are is always been just something that like I've been some sort of weirdly wired to just be drawn towards.

Isaac Morehouse  25:03
Man, it's so interesting. So you're combining a couple of different insights here are like best practices, if you will. One is the you know, learn out loud, be discoverable, increase your look surface. And then one is, like, don't treat anything as a one off, think about what you can learn and whether you can build that into some kind of repeatable system, I find that so fast that you are so good, I'm not very good at that second part at all, I'm very good at learning out loud and everything, but I'm not very good at treating things like, okay, let's turn this into a repeatable system. But man, I absolutely have been so impressed how you've taken, hey, we're kind of doing this informal hangout type thing, or, Hey, I'm gonna reach out to everybody. And then every time I talk to you, next, you've taken it to the next level. And you've you've scaled it somehow, you've systematize it somehow. And then you're sharing the way that you systematize it with others, you're learning out loud again. And then you're taking what you gained from those learning out loud, and you're systematizing that and it's got this compounding effect that I think is just really, really powerful. So I want to know, when you do that, are you basically just doing that betting that if you continue this, you're gonna continue to add value to yourself your network? Or do you have a specific goal in mind that you're working towards? So really leaning into

Justin Zimmerman  26:15
the concept of Social Security as a form of currency, we'll call it a social currency, I guess is the more popular social capital. I always I realized that if enough people know like, and trust me, and enough people are listening to what I say in a truly authentic way that, you know, my future has a lot more certainty behind it. And so I come from a pretty uncertain financially shaky past. And so I've always, I'm always operating and that might be something else that we could talk about in another episode is like, not only should people focus on their super strength, but they also should look at like, some of their their point of origin issues and how it complicates complicates what they're trying to accomplish. And you're trying to always compensate for another conversation, another, another conversation, but those two things kind of go hand in hand, and you come from a family and our family has a certain amount of dynamics, and you're just always leaving in the after effects of that for the rest of your life.

Isaac Morehouse  27:12
As JJ Abrams once said, Every story is really about daddy issues. Yeah, so we got to work out. So

Justin Zimmerman  27:21
what everybody's really seeing me perform at is really just me resolving my flight, my my childhood traumas, in public in front of everybody. But what I what I realized is that one, one, I just love connecting with people, it just gives me energy, it gives me juice to learn and read and talk and then to figure out a system and a business model that allows me to live that way. And so what I realized is that with the rise of social media, the rise of event creator based media, like we're doing here, that if you can understand how to connect with an audience, figure out what they need, and be of service to them. And you can you can grow those numbers in authentic way, because I was on another call earlier today, earlier today, and like, it's email by email, LinkedIn, post by LinkedIn post, comment by comment, you know, behind the scenes, I'm 95% of the time having a single one to one not scalable conversation with somebody. But if I do that enough times over enough weeks and enough days, people know like, and trust me in a real way, their sense of when that see my name show up in their feed, or they see my name show up inside of their email inbox, there's a certain amount of feeling, which is branding, because that's what a brand is, it's the feeling people have when they see your name, or in your absence of your company or your name. And so I'm strategically on a day to day consistent, you know, me, I'm on day 1500. And something in a row running, that's part of who I am, is just to be consistent in my ability to make a heartful connection, character by character, word by word. I know that when I get to 1000, or 2000, or 3000, which actually I'm approaching that those relationships while that approach doesn't scale, the social equity does. And so when I send out an email, or I make a request, or I put something out there, like you were saying that bank account, I'm filling it every single day, just a couple of minutes at a time, a couple of seconds at a time. And, you know, just speak to numbers, and just how do we measure this in a business sense? And this is just me quickly coming up with something like, how do you look at this, it's like, well, I know all the company has ever worked with, you're lucky to get, you know, a 5% click through rate on something on average, and, you know, a 10% to 20% conversion or show up rate on something and so because I've gone the extra mile and I'm not just a a name or a brand inside of somebody's feed that when people see my name, they go back to that feeling that I last left them with and activate something for them and if I have a request or an invitation, they follow up on it. And so I am seeing like 30 40% response rates and 50 and 60% attendance rates because they know me and they're coming to hang out with me. And I've created an environment where it's not me trying to sell people things it's me trying to be and they know that's the brand is Justin's here to help support me. And he's not trying to sell me something, and I'm not. And so at some certain point in time, there's a monetization behind it. Jared,

Isaac Morehouse  30:20
you said, you, I've heard you say this before, don't worry, you got it. That trust is built in drops, and lost in buckets.

Jared Fuller  30:28
I've seen it attributed to a bunch of different people. Last Last attribution I saw was the Under Armour CEO. And I'm like, I highly doubt that he will take a for that, I just don't think it came from him. So who knows it's one of those ones that is, I think, genuinely unattributed, and there's various permutations of it. But I think what, you know that debit versus credit mindset. Another thing that has stuck with me forever, I mean, I see like the same 1015 20 things 100 times, 1000 times versus trying to understand 1000 things one time, right? Small mind small numbers is that, you know, all returns in life, whether in wealth, relationships, business comes from compound interest. And that comes from this concept of making, you know, credits every single day, and helping people get to where they want to go. And then that those returns build up over time. So if you're really working with someone in, I mean, just think about your personal relationship. Your, your, your spouse, your wife, your friends, it takes time to generate that compound interest to where when shit hits the fan, someone's willing to go above and beyond for you. Right, truly, above and beyond for you. Or there's an opportunity where it's like, Hey, we're going for the big one this time. I need your support. Okay. I mean, like Isaac, that's kind of like,

Isaac Morehouse  32:01
that's the, the big one is every time. That's the only difference.

Jared Fuller  32:06
You know, whenever I say whenever I say I'm calling my shot, though, I tend to be right. I might call everything the big thing.

Isaac Morehouse  32:11
I'm not gonna take anything away from you know, it's funny that the compounding interesting like, I love this concept of nonzero days. And I remember where I first heard of it, I always tell every employee I've ever hired every company I've been with. Look, this is at the end of the day, there's two things every single day, you need to be able to answer affirmatively. Did I add value to my company today? Did I add value to myself today? And if you can answer yes, every single day to those you'll be unstoppable. Some days, you're going to add a ton of value. Other days, it's going to be very little but if you but if you don't ever let it be zero. That's what counts. If you do something every day, then that muscle of consistency gets built. And that is just unstoppable. You just think about that compounding Yes, I added point oh 1% value to myself today or to my company today. Other days, it might be more than that. But it just starts to compound in ways that are magical. So I think asking that. And again, adding value to your company. It does add value to yourself as well. It really does. It builds trust internally and externally. And it's gonna help get you to your next opportunity.

Jared Fuller  33:20
Isaac, what's funny is I bet I could point to a couple examples that I had incepted that on you so to speak. So one in particular would be taking reference calls when you were raising money for crash. Right? So like, happy to do that. Right? Nothing in it for me literally nothing in it for me.

Isaac Morehouse  33:38
I gotta I gotta tell you, by the way, when I was raising money for crash in someone's like, who's who's been a customer of your previous company practice that we could talk to. And Jared was like one of our super customers. And so I connected him. I get this call back from this prospective investor. This is what I knew they were going to invest. He goes, holy shit. Jared fuller is amazing, as need to hire him. And I literally had just been trying to convince Jared to come work for me. And he was just I think it was just when you were getting the opportunity at Drift. And it was hard for me to compete with the opportunity at Drift, but he literally called me was like, That guy sold your program. So well. We're like we're it. So Jared. Thank you.

Jared Fuller  34:18
Yeah. And then the other one was I remember I wrote and this one you might not even remember but a couple of people in the practice team and oh cam did I wrote an article for Forbes on how I built an apprentice program inside a panda doc. And there was literally nothing in that for me like I I had one article I could publish inside of Forbes in like a quarter. So I had a handful that year. And I chose to write it about how I built an apprentice program and I linked to praxis. Right. And that was I've actually come come back and use that a handful of times when I evangelize praxis. I actually was talking about practices so much that I was like I need to write an article on it. So I could just send people the article. And you know this so those types of things. What was I doing that for? Well, while I was doing it for, as you know, one year ago today, so we could start a company together, right? And Justin, I think you've brought up a bunch of examples of that as well. And I think in partnerships, that's the ethos that we're supposed to bleed, we're supposed to help people. But understand that there's a long game as well.

Justin Zimmerman  35:20
Yeah, and it's that Simon Sinek, who took it from somebody else about the concept of the infinite game is like, we're not playing to win, we're here to keep playing. And a practical example, I got two of them that have really made a difference in my life. And it wasn't something that I got, it's something that I gave. And it was just acting out of a call of strategic authenticity as I am strategic with who I am authentic with. And so I try to choose people who are heading in the same direction than I am, then I'm heading in, and maybe they're further along the way. But I know that I've got a piece of the puzzle no matter how big my company is in right now, guess what my company's just me. But I know that if I can fill one point in their, their journey, that no matter how big they are, especially if they're bigger, actually,

Isaac Morehouse  36:10
Justin, I love this phrase that you just used positive unknowns. I love that many people have heard in like a threat analysis context, you know, known knowns known unknowns, unknown unknowns, right? And kind of like, what are all the things lurking out there that might harm us with flipping that around and saying they're positive unknowns. Just lurking out there, my friend TK Coleman used to say that the world is a benevolent conspiracy, looking for ways to you know, create whatever and enhance your life. And when you start doing this investing social capital, you get to wake up every day, and think there's something that I've done, that is out there rippling in ways that I don't even know. And it's going to come back to me and I wonder, it's like, you're full of like mystery and expectation, I wonder what ways things are going to come back to me today. And some days, you get a thank you note from someone you talk to two years before about something, and it's like, wow, and it just reminds you of all the things that you didn't ever hear about, that there's like magic happening behind the scenes that you don't even know about if you keep doing those things. So I want to quickly before we wrap it, I want to just say one thing to people who are when they hear like personal branding, or like learning out loud or like, they're like, Oh, I'm an introvert, or I don't like to write or I don't like to go spend a bunch of time on social media trying to get a bunch of engagement playing the algo sipping game. Let me let me directly speak to you. Because it's not just about that. When we were when I was running the practice program, we would do this workshop, and we asked people to write down what they would like to be known as by other people, and what they were interested in. And then we would ask people to go and google this person and spend 15 minutes and they would write down what how would they describe what this person is interested in and what they're known about. And we would compare them. And I remember there was a, there was a guy who was like, I'm really passionate about financial literacy. And when people Googled him, they were like, Ah, he seems like a guy who likes his dog and rock music. Nowhere could they find anything like that. And I said, I happen to know a guy who's writing a book on financial literacy right now and asked me if I had any interns who would be willing to do editing stuff. I never would have known that because it's not knowable about you. So you don't have to go post on social media wherever but have a personal blog have some ways so that if people Google you, the things you want them to know you for, they're capable of finding. So all around you hidden in your own network, you could call them near bound opportunities are just sitting there. And if you're always investing those things, they're just they're right there. They're gonna they're gonna come back to you in ways that you can't know. But you have to make sure that those connections are that you're findable so that when people do go looking, they're able to stumble into you and you're able to catch the increase your luck surfacing cashflows opportunities, Jared, take us home.

Jared Fuller  38:57
Wow, the very fitting and timely career episode for those of you out there who have found yourself on the receiving end of bad news, affecting b2b tech writ large, and seemingly disproportionately affecting some partner orders that have not got that cross functional buy in. Hopefully, this episode will inspire you with a little bit of oomph to go out there and continue to build things that will serve you later on in life. Don't Don't think like the CRO that is only thinking about this month or this quarter. Right there is there is a long game to be played here. You're fighting the good fight. And we do got something to plug. I'm very, very excited to share. I mean, gosh, how do I keep doing this? It's objectively the biggest news and partner hacker history. Objectively, it's crazy. So if you're listening to this on Tuesday whenever it comes out, I think that would be the 21st of February. Tomorrow is a big event near bound.com. In a special one hour event, go there, check it out, and you're gonna get access and be a part of something very special. First there was outbound, then there was inbound. Now there's near bound. I'm very, very excited to bring the maturity to this methodology framework in motion of how we build our businesses together. I think that the news and the announcement that we have behind this is going to be the future of b2b truly do. And I'm very, very excited to go there. Come check it out. Come hang out with us for an hour. It's an hour long event, super simple. And we're going to give you the near bound guide to driving revenue with account mapping, which is the most tactical piece of content we have ever worked on. It's about 40 pages. And is the thing that your sales org has been missing on how to utilize like this partner data that everyone's trying to figure out. So partner up Jay Z. That was a blast, man. Isaac, thank you for carrying this one. This was your zone of genius. Partner up. We will see you all next time.

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