Meeting Title: BF Partner Strategy Review Date: 2026-01-14 Meeting participants: Joe Lewandowski, Holly Condos, Steve, Uttam Kumaran, Hannah Wang
WEBVTT
1 00:00:55.160 ⇒ 00:00:57.599 Steve: Hey, Joe, hey, Holly, can you guys hear me?
2 00:00:58.470 ⇒ 00:00:59.500 Holly Condos: Hi, Steve!
3 00:00:59.500 ⇒ 00:01:00.300 Joe Lewandowski: Hi, Steve.
4 00:01:02.040 ⇒ 00:01:02.590 Steve: Oh, give me one.
5 00:01:02.590 ⇒ 00:01:02.970 Holly Condos: How are you?
6 00:01:02.970 ⇒ 00:01:07.830 Steve: I think I gotta figure out my… Wow, can you hear me?
7 00:01:08.390 ⇒ 00:01:09.150 Holly Condos: Yes.
8 00:01:09.150 ⇒ 00:01:10.040 Joe Lewandowski: Yes.
9 00:01:13.310 ⇒ 00:01:17.530 Steve: It’s my fault. I gotta get my speakers figured out here.
10 00:01:19.010 ⇒ 00:01:20.700 Steve: Alright, I gotcha.
11 00:01:24.250 ⇒ 00:01:25.389 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, everyone.
12 00:01:26.670 ⇒ 00:01:27.440 Steve: Hey, sir.
13 00:01:27.910 ⇒ 00:01:28.729 Steve: Alright, Udom?
14 00:01:28.730 ⇒ 00:01:30.460 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, how are ya? Good.
15 00:01:30.460 ⇒ 00:01:36.270 Steve: Hey, give me one sec, I had to switch over to my desktop. Let me get my… Camera.
16 00:01:36.270 ⇒ 00:01:36.860 Uttam Kumaran: Rum.
17 00:01:37.570 ⇒ 00:01:38.220 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, Joe.
18 00:01:38.950 ⇒ 00:01:40.519 Joe Lewandowski: Hey, Tim, how are you?
19 00:01:40.650 ⇒ 00:01:42.729 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, good, how are you? Good to see you.
20 00:01:42.730 ⇒ 00:01:43.400 Joe Lewandowski: Good.
21 00:01:53.030 ⇒ 00:01:57.110 Steve: Logistics of having too many computers.
22 00:01:57.810 ⇒ 00:01:59.610 Steve: I know the feeling.
23 00:02:03.550 ⇒ 00:02:12.490 Steve: Got a cool little KVM switch, or whatever they’re called, set up, but not everything’s plugged in, so… forget that I gotta switch my camera sometimes.
24 00:02:13.860 ⇒ 00:02:14.850 Holly Condos: All good.
25 00:02:15.110 ⇒ 00:02:17.860 Steve: Is everybody out of Austin?
26 00:02:18.730 ⇒ 00:02:19.960 Uttam Kumaran: No, it’s a mix.
27 00:02:20.180 ⇒ 00:02:20.690 Steve: Is it?
28 00:02:20.690 ⇒ 00:02:26.800 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, Joe’s… Joe’s in New York, Folly is in San Diego,
29 00:02:27.060 ⇒ 00:02:30.410 Uttam Kumaran: Anna’s in LA, Luke’s in LA,
30 00:02:31.230 ⇒ 00:02:34.829 Uttam Kumaran: I’m, of course, here, in Austin. Beautiful Austin.
31 00:02:35.210 ⇒ 00:02:37.039 Uttam Kumaran: Steve’s in Austin, also.
32 00:02:37.980 ⇒ 00:02:45.029 Steve: Yep. Excuse my, headset here. I’m on my desktop that doesn’t have speakers, so I’m sorry for looking like a major dork.
33 00:02:45.850 ⇒ 00:02:47.950 Holly Condos: You don’t look like a major dork, it’s all good.
34 00:02:48.210 ⇒ 00:02:51.479 Steve: Appreciate that, Holly. I’ll send you a Starbucks card after this.
35 00:02:57.470 ⇒ 00:02:58.760 Steve: Good to meet everybody.
36 00:02:58.760 ⇒ 00:02:59.289 Uttam Kumaran: Cool, yeah.
37 00:02:59.290 ⇒ 00:03:00.430 Steve: jump in? Go ahead, Aaron.
38 00:03:00.430 ⇒ 00:03:17.069 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, let’s jump in. Maybe, Steve, I can just have you give, like, you know, a 90-second intro, you know, maybe on how we got connected and, just, like, your background. You know, everybody here is in one way or another involved in, in sort of our partnership playbook.
39 00:03:17.160 ⇒ 00:03:35.659 Uttam Kumaran: And so I’m excited, you know, to get some really tactical advice. I like some of the questions that you had. Maybe we can, you know, briefly for this meeting, I’d love to start just by, like, really just… I think your initial advice to me is actually what has shaped all of our, like, deck and presentation process so far, actually.
40 00:03:35.940 ⇒ 00:03:48.100 Uttam Kumaran: And so we want to sort of continue to take that to the next level. I do… we are in a much different place than I think we… when we originally connected, so we’re happy to show you sort of what our current
41 00:03:48.350 ⇒ 00:03:59.490 Uttam Kumaran: partnerships are, but especially as we’re trying to go partner with larger firms and the hyperscalers, I would love to talk today a little bit about the distinction of how to
42 00:03:59.500 ⇒ 00:04:16.089 Uttam Kumaran: best partner with them versus some of the mid-market vendors that we’re partnering with, you know, and that’s kind of, like, where the discussion, you know, I’d like to go. And then the way you described, like, each part of the partnership funnel, we can also talk through. So, yeah, that’s, that’s sort of what our agenda is today.
43 00:04:16.570 ⇒ 00:04:26.380 Steve: Yeah, sounds good, and obviously there’s a lot to talk through. I do want to be up front. I noticed I… this is for 45 minutes, so I’m going to have to stop at the half-hour mark, but…
44 00:04:26.380 ⇒ 00:04:27.130 Uttam Kumaran: Fair.
45 00:04:27.130 ⇒ 00:04:37.220 Steve: like you said, I feel like, you know, one, I have a little bit of background, just because you and I have had several conversations, and I’ve always been impressed with you. I refuse to take credit for
46 00:04:37.220 ⇒ 00:04:47.230 Steve: what you guys have put together here, Udom, because you, you had a lot figured out, and I mean, you were… Team, to give you a little bit of background, I think…
47 00:04:47.480 ⇒ 00:05:04.800 Steve: You reached out to me originally on LinkedIn, right? That’s… yeah, so… I did. …win’ his, you know, social butterfly, or networking stuff, and caught me off guard. Generally, I ignore what comes in through LinkedIn, but I took a look at Brainforge, and…
48 00:05:04.890 ⇒ 00:05:09.410 Steve: It was over a year ago now, probably, right? Had to be.
49 00:05:09.410 ⇒ 00:05:10.930 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think so, probably, yeah.
50 00:05:10.930 ⇒ 00:05:33.579 Steve: because VixelCon’s coming up again. So, but yeah, I mean, I was just really impressed with what I saw with what Brainforge was working towards, what, you know, Udom had set up, just on, you know, some of the go-to-market that he had on the website. And then, you know, he and I had a quick introductory call at one point, and it just felt like there’s a lot of resonate… a lot that resonated between us in terms of
51 00:05:34.240 ⇒ 00:05:48.670 Steve: the mindset he took into getting Brainforge up and running, and essentially, you know, how you guys are tackling some of the modern approaches that… I’ve been in the consulting world for the last 15 plus years, and, you know, there’s still a lot of
52 00:05:48.810 ⇒ 00:06:05.130 Steve: consulting firms that have been around for a really long time that didn’t have their messaging down, they weren’t approaching, you know, the AI discussions with clients, and the data modernization approaches that I felt Brainforge nailed from the start. So, I was really impressed with that, and you know, I think we’ve had several
53 00:06:05.130 ⇒ 00:06:13.079 Steve: Just networking discussions, alignment discussions just around, you know, where we do have similarities in our perspectives on how we’re helping clients, and…
54 00:06:13.140 ⇒ 00:06:26.740 Steve: You know, I think my background has been 100% in the Microsoft channel, so I’ve been with partner organizations, some of the most premier partner organizations in the Microsoft ecosystem for the last 15 years.
55 00:06:26.840 ⇒ 00:06:33.379 Steve: I’ve jumped around the last couple years, but the first one I was with was a company called Blue Granite, and they were foundationally
56 00:06:33.540 ⇒ 00:06:48.309 Steve: data warehouse, BI, analytics, and they were a small company. We were 20 people when I joined, and if you know anything about the Microsoft ecosystem, I mean, there’s behemoths in there. I mean, you got your Accensors, your Avanades, you got…
57 00:06:48.310 ⇒ 00:07:10.469 Steve: BCG, all the really big consulting firms that dominate, you know, the enterprise accounts and whatnot. Blue Granted at the time, being a 20-person shop out of Kalamazoo, Michigan, we were winning Partner of the Year awards for our approach to data and analytics. And at that time, it was, you know, modern BI, modern data analytics, which was still data warehousing. This is before lake houses, and…
58 00:07:10.470 ⇒ 00:07:15.959 Steve: and everything, you know, all the buzz terms now, but we were also getting into AI and ML back then.
59 00:07:16.020 ⇒ 00:07:21.329 Steve: But, you know, I think what really… what really, I think.
60 00:07:21.930 ⇒ 00:07:26.719 Steve: Got me interested in what you guys are putting together is just, you know.
61 00:07:26.720 ⇒ 00:07:34.820 Steve: it’s that purebred, you guys are out to help customers. I really feel that, and I feel like, you know, the innovation you guys have right now, and just…
62 00:07:34.820 ⇒ 00:07:47.260 Steve: being, you know, a smaller, more agile company at the moment, you guys have the ability to go in and make a big impact with customers, because we can do a lot more with AI. You don’t need to charge them a million dollars, although that would be nice.
63 00:07:48.280 ⇒ 00:07:48.750 Steve: So…
64 00:07:48.750 ⇒ 00:07:54.080 Uttam Kumaran: I’d be surprised, speed is what we charge for now. Speed is the feature.
65 00:07:54.080 ⇒ 00:07:56.060 Holly Condos: Speed is a creature, that’s for sure.
66 00:07:56.060 ⇒ 00:08:14.119 Steve: Some of the conversations that we had that Udom alluded to around the partner channel, you know, I’ve built my last 15 years of my career really building relationships with Microsoft and having them bring us in. All the partner companies that I’ve been a part of have been 100% through Microsoft Channel.
67 00:08:15.130 ⇒ 00:08:24.750 Steve: And that means, you know, I would say 90% of the deals that I’ve closed over the last 15 years have been because Microsoft introduced me to a client, and there’s
68 00:08:24.750 ⇒ 00:08:40.249 Steve: you know, none of my experience was anything that I came up with. It was everything that, you know, founders from Bluegrain in particular, had been working through the Microsoft channel, how they built their relationships, how they landed credibility, and how they get Microsoft sellers to bring them into
69 00:08:40.799 ⇒ 00:08:46.080 Steve: opportunities and make introductions to big companies that I would never have had a shot at if I would have
70 00:08:46.080 ⇒ 00:09:01.200 Steve: tried picking up the phone and cold called the CIOs of, you know, Pepsi or anything like that. So, partner channels can be very powerful. They’re also challenging, and getting into a hyperscaler at, you know, AWS or GCP or Microsoft.
71 00:09:01.200 ⇒ 00:09:06.500 Steve: You know, there’s hoops you gotta jump through just to get the credentials so that, you know, Microsoft
72 00:09:06.500 ⇒ 00:09:20.729 Steve: even has you on their radar. But before you do all that, there’s still ways that I think… and you guys are already heading down this path with Snowflake and some of the other, you know, partners that you guys are driving some opportunities through, or at least driving solutions through.
73 00:09:20.750 ⇒ 00:09:26.700 Steve: that I think you could… you could circle back and get a lot of traction in some of these channels, even without having
74 00:09:26.910 ⇒ 00:09:31.880 Steve: you know, all the partner certifications and everything, and I’ve been a part of
75 00:09:31.940 ⇒ 00:09:51.899 Steve: even smaller firms in Blue Granite since then, where, you know, we were 5 people, and still getting pulled into deals directly from Microsoft. Part of that was just our relationships. Everybody came from partner organizations that were well known in Microsoft, but, I still think there’s plenty of ways that we can collaboratively kind of look at what you guys are starting to do from a…
76 00:09:52.050 ⇒ 00:09:57.810 Steve: your messaging to whatever channels you guys are prioritizing right now, I know Snowflake’s one of them.
77 00:09:58.000 ⇒ 00:10:04.319 Steve: But happy to… happy to just collaborate. So, you know, we’d love to hear, kind of, where you guys are at, and…
78 00:10:04.730 ⇒ 00:10:08.869 Steve: I… we talked about looking at some of the collateral, but I mean.
79 00:10:09.090 ⇒ 00:10:26.210 Steve: I’d love to go around the horn, maybe, and just hear everybody’s perspective, like, what… are you guys already having any engagement, conversations with partner channels, Snowflake, anybody else? Are there hyperscalers that you would gravitate towards? I think you’ve answered that in the past with… is it AWS or GCP?
80 00:10:27.330 ⇒ 00:10:35.970 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, maybe, Holly, I can let you kind of answer from the current state of, like, where we’re at, because, you know, you have a lot of background also, and you kind of have seen where we’ve shaped things so far.
81 00:10:37.130 ⇒ 00:10:38.730 Holly Condos: Sure,
82 00:10:39.140 ⇒ 00:10:50.009 Holly Condos: So, Steve, I, like you, have been in tech for quite a while, and I do a lot of partner development and partner management for…
83 00:10:50.090 ⇒ 00:11:00.040 Holly Condos: AWS, Microsoft, Google, and ServiceNow, currently. Probably in the past 5 years or so. So when I joined…
84 00:11:00.230 ⇒ 00:11:02.730 Holly Condos: Brainforged last quarter.
85 00:11:02.790 ⇒ 00:11:17.929 Holly Condos: Q4 of 2025. I, I think, really, where things were at, Robert and Utam had established some relationships with a variety of partners, Snowflake included.
86 00:11:17.990 ⇒ 00:11:35.249 Holly Condos: Right? But just hadn’t had the time to really get down on the floor and develop the relationships. And to your point, that’s what it’s about, right? Yep. So in that quarter and where we’re at now, we have established a presence with Snowflake again.
87 00:11:35.320 ⇒ 00:11:44.290 Holly Condos: We’ve registered probably 4 or 5 deals, and gotten some traction with the actual sales reps for those
88 00:11:44.290 ⇒ 00:11:55.569 Holly Condos: particular accounts. We’ve got one rep who’s anxious to set up a joint marketing event, which we’re certainly interested in doing.
89 00:11:55.570 ⇒ 00:12:04.759 Holly Condos: But I think, and this is what I’ve tried to help Utam with, and again, to your point, you know, what I think we want to try to do with Brainforge is…
90 00:12:04.920 ⇒ 00:12:11.940 Holly Condos: Figure out the path to differentiation without necessarily going through the typical
91 00:12:12.220 ⇒ 00:12:22.099 Holly Condos: road of, oh, you gotta have 7 certs, and you’ve got to do, you know, this many case studies. Certainly those are benchmarks, but
92 00:12:22.100 ⇒ 00:12:32.340 Holly Condos: I agree with you. I think that the relationships are everything, and how we get ourselves in the heads of field sales…
93 00:12:32.510 ⇒ 00:12:51.870 Holly Condos: Is really the key. So, I guess that’s a bit more around the edges. We’ve gotten some other partnership traction with some of the smaller companies, again, to Utam’s point, pretty much mid-market. Snowflake is the biggest enterprise at this point.
94 00:12:51.930 ⇒ 00:13:06.100 Holly Condos: I think we’re looking at the angle of AWS, Microsoft, and Google. I guess I would steer Brainforge away from Google a little bit, because, at least
95 00:13:06.280 ⇒ 00:13:20.109 Holly Condos: In the last year, it’s really a feeding frenzy, and they’ve changed their partner program substantially because they’re trying to keep a lot of service delivery opportunities in-house.
96 00:13:20.160 ⇒ 00:13:27.389 Holly Condos: So, that, I think, of the 4, or 3, if you will, is probably the toughest, at least from my perspective.
97 00:13:27.820 ⇒ 00:13:31.019 Steve: Yeah, and just a caveat, or build on that.
98 00:13:31.220 ⇒ 00:13:38.079 Steve: Microsoft’s also… their partner channel’s changed a lot over the last 2 years. It’s harder for smaller companies to get
99 00:13:38.400 ⇒ 00:13:44.790 Steve: on the radar for enterprise accounts, but it’s not impossible, and I think, you know, I don’t know where…
100 00:13:45.000 ⇒ 00:13:57.439 Steve: You guys, if you’re gonna put a stake in the ground and say, you know, we’re gonna go after one hyperscaler, but from my experience… and you can… you can finesse this, but from my experience.
101 00:13:58.210 ⇒ 00:14:10.350 Steve: you’re early on, gonna gain a lot more traction if you come across and actually embody a full-bred or, you know, partner for them, whether it’s AWS or Microsoft.
102 00:14:11.000 ⇒ 00:14:22.010 Steve: And build on what you’re doing with Snowflake, but at the same time, you know, they need to know that you’re in there to help them, and I think if you’re, one, just, you know, still
103 00:14:22.100 ⇒ 00:14:39.330 Steve: growing the company and getting over… getting to certain milestones from a size and capability standpoint, if it comes across that you’re broad at all, or that you’re going to be doing whatever the customers, you know, you’re going to position other potential solutions.
104 00:14:39.350 ⇒ 00:14:42.690 Steve: it’s gonna be a lot harder to get in there, so anytime you’re in front of…
105 00:14:43.340 ⇒ 00:14:44.999 Holly Condos: Yeah, I agree completely.
106 00:14:46.800 ⇒ 00:14:47.619 Holly Condos: Are you familiar.
107 00:14:47.620 ⇒ 00:15:05.120 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and we’ve also… we’ve also found that it doesn’t matter. And so, like, what I learned about, salespeople over the years is they just care about the money coming in. And so, we’ve gone, for example, like, Omni… like, a lot of these guys are like, oh, you don’t have any certifications? I’m like, well, I’ve sold your software 30 times.
108 00:15:05.120 ⇒ 00:15:10.919 Uttam Kumaran: So, like, let’s skip all of that. Don’t worry about certifications. My team knows your software, like, pretty well, like.
109 00:15:10.980 ⇒ 00:15:22.669 Uttam Kumaran: And none of my clients have ever asked me about our certifications, and I don’t ask any. Like, it’s sort of like a game that I know we can skip, but as we get bigger, of course, as we go bigger.
110 00:15:23.010 ⇒ 00:15:23.370 Holly Condos: Okay.
111 00:15:23.370 ⇒ 00:15:33.810 Uttam Kumaran: may not be able to skip it, but again, I’m not worried, and internally, Steve, we’re starting to put together incentives for getting certs, so people… we’ll finish that up. Like, we’ll check that box.
112 00:15:33.810 ⇒ 00:15:48.540 Uttam Kumaran: But we found that, again, like, for a lot of partners, we’re… we’re already selling their tools, so we come in with, like, we’ve already sold you a couple times, we know the talking points, like, so it’s a lot less… it’s a lot less just, like, raw, and we’re… and also, we…
113 00:15:48.800 ⇒ 00:15:54.859 Uttam Kumaran: our… what I know it works is, like, we’re coming with a deal, which is one thing that you mentioned to me when you talked about Microsoft.
114 00:15:55.000 ⇒ 00:16:04.610 Uttam Kumaran: is, like, come with the deal, come positioned to talk about the slew of solutions, and make it easy for the AE to just, like, slot you in, whether it’s materials or otherwise, you know?
115 00:16:05.010 ⇒ 00:16:08.600 Steve: Yeah, I… fully, I just want to make sure…
116 00:16:08.950 ⇒ 00:16:20.569 Steve: you… I’m on the same page, man. If you go in and all you can say is, hey, we’re gold certified, or we got these certifications, and you can’t land the rest of the messaging, you’re dead in the water. Like, they don’t care.
117 00:16:20.620 ⇒ 00:16:37.179 Steve: I’ve never been asked what certifications our companies have, partly because, you know, even in the smaller companies, they won’t ask you that. Like, it comes through in the conversation when you’re showing them solutions you’ve delivered, and, you know, they just hear you talk. Like, that’s… that’s where you build their trust, and
118 00:16:37.180 ⇒ 00:16:42.430 Steve: Honestly, the hardest part about the partner channel isn’t building the relationships, it’s building the relationships
119 00:16:42.430 ⇒ 00:16:55.400 Steve: with effective sellers on that side. You waste a lot of time with… with… you gotta do their job for them, and even good sellers over there, they struggle with the same thing we do. They might have a list of accounts that know them well.
120 00:16:55.470 ⇒ 00:17:09.709 Steve: know their company well, already doing business with their company, whether they’re Snowflake, Microsoft, whoever, they’re still in, you know, a fight to win Mindshare from their competitors, AWS, GCP, or whatever. So getting in there themselves.
121 00:17:09.970 ⇒ 00:17:20.620 Steve: even when it doesn’t seem like it would be, you’re at Microsoft, every client should be picking up the phone. It’s not true, and especially if you’re dealing with, like, mid-market, SMEC,
122 00:17:20.750 ⇒ 00:17:38.579 Steve: at Microsoft, those sellers have 100 accounts that they might touch the top 20%, and giving them tools to get in front of their customers is really where they will start, you know, rapidly bringing you into things. Like, helping them sell better, and giving them material that
123 00:17:39.180 ⇒ 00:17:45.990 Steve: will… will click with them, and they say, man, I need to get this in front of my customer right now. Like, that’s… that’s when…
124 00:17:46.120 ⇒ 00:17:52.940 Steve: I think, you know, all the other noise of where are you at certification, or, you know, they won’t even check to see if you’re on the list, quote-unquote.
125 00:17:52.940 ⇒ 00:17:55.379 Holly Condos: They’re just gonna bring you in, so…
126 00:17:58.080 ⇒ 00:18:05.910 Steve: I know, like, we are short on time. I can go over, you know, 5 or 10 minutes here. I don’t wanna… I don’t wanna stop dead at 1230, I just gotta… Yeah, maybe… maybe let me just…
127 00:18:05.910 ⇒ 00:18:21.609 Uttam Kumaran: walk through quickly, sort of, like, how we have our materials set up, Steve, and you can even just, like, rapid-fire, like, what… like, what you think. So, as I mentioned, maybe what I’ll start with is just kind of showing you, like, some of our, like, actually active, like, partners right now.
128 00:18:21.660 ⇒ 00:18:31.990 Uttam Kumaran: And, you know, we’re updating this, but, you know, we have people that are vendor partners, agency partners, like, we’re also getting into some, like, business associations.
129 00:18:32.010 ⇒ 00:18:50.969 Uttam Kumaran: So again, like, this really started as, like, some of these we’re selling, some of these we’re referring business to, and ultimately, this is sort of how we have our stuff organized internally, where we sort of map out who the partners are, what is their relationship, sort of, like, the origin story, looking at, like, our momentum, right? So, like, when is the last activity? What’s the next activity?
130 00:18:50.970 ⇒ 00:18:58.870 Uttam Kumaran: And then starting to track, like, okay, how many… how many deals have we worked with them on? How many have sent to them? How many have they sent to us?
131 00:18:58.980 ⇒ 00:19:01.350 Uttam Kumaran: And sort of…
132 00:19:01.350 ⇒ 00:19:02.580 Holly Condos: events we’re doing.
133 00:19:02.980 ⇒ 00:19:19.780 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, what events we’re doing, and so this is sort of, like, our internal, tracking. I think a lot of this will end up probably in HubSpot, like, longer term, but this works for now. And again, we’re not a… it’s not a volume play for us. It’s… it’s really, like, I would work with one partner if all our deals can come from one partner. Like, I…
134 00:19:19.780 ⇒ 00:19:25.050 Uttam Kumaran: We only care about, you know, like, working with… with bigger clients.
135 00:19:25.070 ⇒ 00:19:36.929 Uttam Kumaran: And honestly, frankly, I’m… I care more… more about how do we disqualify some of these if, like, they don’t end up working out faster, right? Like, I don’t want to continue to spend time talking to vendors or folks that
136 00:19:36.990 ⇒ 00:19:50.999 Uttam Kumaran: Like, it’s just not gonna work out. So we’re doing better at that. We’re also doing better at, like, going from the first touch to, like, an activity, like a co-marketing, or an asset, or some sort of co-selling, and this really kind of helps with that.
137 00:19:52.630 ⇒ 00:20:09.699 Uttam Kumaran: this is sort of, like, our… I’ll sort of show two decks today. One is, like, we have a… basically a partner deck that we produce, and really, for me, it was, like, for any partner meeting we go into, at least I want to have… feel like we’ve… we’ve kind of, like, customized a little bit. And I’ll show you also then, when we got to Snowflake.
138 00:20:09.700 ⇒ 00:20:27.570 Uttam Kumaran: we went a little bit further. You know, of course, for any partner, I would like us to just really do… basically treat them like a Microsoft, right? And I think people really love that, where we come in, we really focus on them, we focus on how we talk about them, and how we can make, you know, do business together. So just to kind of walk through this.
139 00:20:27.570 ⇒ 00:20:30.499 Uttam Kumaran: And I’m happy to share this with you, is we basically…
140 00:20:30.610 ⇒ 00:20:35.550 Uttam Kumaran: We basically start by talking through, like, here’s how we think about,
141 00:20:35.950 ⇒ 00:20:40.220 Uttam Kumaran: Here, let me just turn these columns back. Here’s how we think about partnerships.
142 00:20:40.450 ⇒ 00:20:50.039 Uttam Kumaran: We walk through immediately, like, what the Brainforge ICP is. So again, like, we just try to get to the meat of it, and, like, I realize when we’re talking to sellers, like, let’s just start, they’re gonna ask us, like.
143 00:20:50.080 ⇒ 00:20:59.849 Uttam Kumaran: maybe this is just, like, setting the stage for, like, we think about partnerships and collaboration. I expressed that, like, don’t really care about referral fees, care much more about co-marketing, co-selling together.
144 00:20:59.870 ⇒ 00:21:15.129 Uttam Kumaran: We have a great ICP, like, a serious ICP. We’re not, like, selling to SMBs or startups, like, we’re not real, like, we’re a real company, you know, like, this is gonna be a worthwhile call. We talk about our team, we then talk through their team.
145 00:21:15.130 ⇒ 00:21:20.069 Uttam Kumaran: This is something that Holly and I worked on, which is basically showing our partner ecosystem.
146 00:21:20.070 ⇒ 00:21:29.189 Uttam Kumaran: this is sort of, like, kind of fluff right now, but it’s kind of, again, one, trying to show that we’re… we’re serious, and we do think about these types of partners. I think as we get a
147 00:21:29.290 ⇒ 00:21:46.899 Uttam Kumaran: bigger and bigger, like, this will become more, you know, real. We talk about how most of our deals are involving partners, and we’ve driven a lot of revenue to partners. We talk about our existing set of partners, right? So ideally, people should see either their competitor or a friend in data world.
148 00:21:47.100 ⇒ 00:22:00.099 Uttam Kumaran: And in AI world, it’s very small, so, like, you’ll most likely know… tellers will know people at these places, they may have came from these places, so ideally, if they go back channel, like, I’m confident they’ll be like, yeah, those people are… those guys are great.
149 00:22:00.260 ⇒ 00:22:08.959 Uttam Kumaran: So we talked through that, so again, and then we sort of talked through our clients. This is also great, again, this is just, like, continuing to cement that, like, this was a legit
150 00:22:09.020 ⇒ 00:22:24.600 Uttam Kumaran: like, we’re a legit partner, like, we’re gonna drive business. We talk about, like, any sort of work that we’ve done together, so sometimes, like, these are relationships that maybe we had a while ago and we’re kicking back up, or, like, I had a friend and we did something, or just showing, like, have we done anything together so far?
151 00:22:25.070 ⇒ 00:22:31.539 Uttam Kumaran: We talk about how we pitch. Typically at this point, we talk about, like, how we pitch X vendor.
152 00:22:32.900 ⇒ 00:22:52.869 Uttam Kumaran: So, I’ll basically walk through, like, why their tool is great, how we talk to them. That’s usually, like, kind of a hit. And then we sort of honestly walk through, like, what kind of partner motions we have. Like, we talk about some of the events that we’ve done, we talk about, things we can do on social, we talk about, like, white papers, playbooks, talk about video and blog posts.
153 00:22:53.160 ⇒ 00:23:13.129 Uttam Kumaran: We talked about, like, maybe a potential budget for those, and then we sort of go into, like, hey, what are our… what are our goals together? And then, like, what are basically, like, some active leads that we can collaborate on? So again, we end the conversation with, like, really, like, the meat of it, like, hey, here, we have active stuff that we want to collaborate with you on, and then, like, either marketing activities and then next steps.
154 00:23:13.780 ⇒ 00:23:22.279 Uttam Kumaran: So this is, like, an example of one of them. I think here’s, like, the version of it that we just did for Mixpanel. So, Mixpanel’s a product analytics tool. Yeah, go ahead.
155 00:23:22.280 ⇒ 00:23:28.120 Steve: So, real quick, so what audience would you land that last.
156 00:23:28.120 ⇒ 00:23:34.359 Uttam Kumaran: slide deck. Yeah, so typically this is the head of partnerships or, like, a senior partnerships person. Yeah.
157 00:23:35.340 ⇒ 00:23:51.459 Uttam Kumaran: This is not often for the salespeople. Usually, like, it’s, like, step two, and then when we go with the salespeople, it’s, like, really quick. It’s like, what’s the lead? Who are we talking about? It’s, like, more… much more transactional. But we’re getting the intro to the salesperson from
158 00:23:51.580 ⇒ 00:23:54.170 Uttam Kumaran: the head of partnerships, right? So, it’s like…
159 00:23:54.170 ⇒ 00:23:54.710 Holly Condos: Right.
160 00:23:55.190 ⇒ 00:24:05.069 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it sort of cascades from there. But, like, this is an example of, like, what we’re doing for most partners right now, and it’s been working pretty well. So, like, totally open to…
161 00:24:05.500 ⇒ 00:24:07.889 Uttam Kumaran: Any feedback on… I did. Yeah.
162 00:24:08.140 ⇒ 00:24:12.239 Steve: I think it’s the right approach when you’re… when you’re building that direct
163 00:24:12.690 ⇒ 00:24:22.340 Steve: you know, working with their partner sales reps, or the partner channel managers, I think, obviously, this level of detail is great, and showing them where you can, you know,
164 00:24:22.710 ⇒ 00:24:38.189 Steve: do some co-marketing with them, or any of your events, how that plays into just building awareness for them, and gives them some… some jumping-off points, too, to say, well, you know, alright, let’s do this in this market, or I got, you know, this vertical to… to maybe align you with where you guys might be able to do some co-marketing stuff.
165 00:24:38.190 ⇒ 00:24:48.290 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we basically asked them, like, what do you… what’s your guys’ KPI this quarter? And, like, is it net new logos? Are you expanding? Are you trying to get somewhere? And, like, how do we basically make that our KPI as well, you know?
166 00:24:48.540 ⇒ 00:24:50.610 Steve: Yeah, let me ask this, so…
167 00:24:51.330 ⇒ 00:25:02.390 Steve: I mean, all this material is great, and I think you’re aligning the right message to the audience that, you know, you’re in front of for these partnership decks. As you get tactical and try to get… like, where…
168 00:25:02.520 ⇒ 00:25:09.409 Steve: where would you want to see most progress this year? Like, do you want to… do you want to solidify some of these partnerships, or are you…
169 00:25:09.410 ⇒ 00:25:26.040 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and, like, maybe, maybe one thing, I’ll just show you the Snowflake one, and then I have, like, a couple questions, where it’s, like, this is, for example, what we would present… what we presented… what we present to Snowflake. What we did, we presented to, like, one of the senior partnerships persons. We… and again, this is, like, sort of, like, taking from your advice, which is, like.
170 00:25:26.260 ⇒ 00:25:42.249 Uttam Kumaran: just talk about, like, stuff we’ve done with Snowflake, talk about, like, our other partners, show a couple of Snowflake case studies, go right into active snowflake deals, what are our ideal accounts? Like, what are our plays, with them? What are some co-sale plays we can run together, packaging.
171 00:25:42.350 ⇒ 00:25:58.540 Uttam Kumaran: You know, things like that. So my question is, like, one, what, like, how should we approach the meeting with the salesperson in a different way than this, right? Like, we… this was great, we… I think we do well here. When we get in front of a salesperson, I’m interested in, like.
172 00:25:58.600 ⇒ 00:26:06.519 Uttam Kumaran: How do we make the best out of that, like, 30 minutes, where we’re… we’re either doing account mapping, or we’re, like, talking about an active lead?
173 00:26:07.060 ⇒ 00:26:10.740 Steve: Yeah, do you guys get…
174 00:26:10.880 ⇒ 00:26:22.900 Steve: account… so, in Microsoft’s world, they have their master account list, and that is something where, typically, if you’re going through the right channels, and they’ve locked that down a little bit, you gotta get
175 00:26:23.210 ⇒ 00:26:28.089 Steve: You gotta get that account list from your, your partner manager, so that’s after…
176 00:26:28.090 ⇒ 00:26:35.289 Uttam Kumaran: They’ve offered… they’ve offered it to us, at a couple of these, and, like, here’s, like, our struct… we basically put together this…
177 00:26:35.500 ⇒ 00:26:47.680 Uttam Kumaran: Google Sheet every time we, like, start a new partner, and then we’re like, cool, we’re just gonna centralize stuff here. But again, that’s a fair thing. It’s like, I don’t think we’ve, like, followed up on many of those, but I’m also just, like.
178 00:26:47.850 ⇒ 00:26:53.990 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I would, I mean, I would love to get that list, and then we sort of, yeah, like, I’m just kind of curious, like, how we drive towards that.
179 00:26:54.300 ⇒ 00:27:06.699 Steve: I would get that list, but I would get it… I would be most… like, we’ve done… we’ve had partnerships with Prophecy. We’re doing one partnership right now, and just a good anecdote that gets into what you do when you’re in front of
180 00:27:07.010 ⇒ 00:27:09.650 Steve: you know, a seller, too, but… so…
181 00:27:09.890 ⇒ 00:27:25.699 Steve: in the smaller partnerships, like, Prophecy, or even for us, Databricks would be a smaller partner. What I’ve found is they’re very much more, of the posture, what have you done for me lately? Like, what are you bringing me into? They’re… they’re not…
182 00:27:25.700 ⇒ 00:27:33.110 Steve: bring… like, they’re not proactively looking for ways to bring you in, whereas Microsoft and some of the bigger partners are, because one.
183 00:27:33.110 ⇒ 00:27:52.119 Steve: that’s how they sell. They need to bring partners in, because they… their… their hands are tied to a degree, and it sounds like Google might be a little bit different, but at least in Microsoft’s world, sellers can only go so far with a client discussion. Like, once it’s past, like, rudimental topics, like, once the client says, yeah, I’m looking at fabric.
184 00:27:52.120 ⇒ 00:27:59.509 Steve: at that point, like, there’s really not much else they can do. If they want to accelerate that from a, we’re just kicking the tires on fabric, to we want to get
185 00:27:59.620 ⇒ 00:28:08.170 Steve: consumed revenue going in the cloud, they need to introduce a partner, and I think most of the… most of the big hyperscalers are going to be like that. I would have to imagine even
186 00:28:08.170 ⇒ 00:28:21.280 Steve: Snowflake and Databricks are. Databricks is just not… Databricks has their own venture fund, and, you know, the people that are part of that, they’re gonna get the first looks at all those deals, and quite honestly, for when you’re in the hyperscaler.
187 00:28:21.720 ⇒ 00:28:39.750 Steve: you know, Databricks, Snowflake, they’re going to represent a small portion of whatever solutions you might be driving. Even if you’re only going to focus on data modernization and app modernization and AI enablement, you’re still really, I mean, you’re not going to be always centering your solutions and your architecture on
188 00:28:39.780 ⇒ 00:28:48.330 Steve: Databricks. And to that matter, you don’t need the introduction from Snowflake or Databricks at that point, because you’re getting the introduction through Microsoft, and it’s a broader… you get a bigger.
189 00:28:48.330 ⇒ 00:28:48.890 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
190 00:28:48.890 ⇒ 00:28:49.560 Steve: shot, right?
191 00:28:49.560 ⇒ 00:28:50.449 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
192 00:28:50.450 ⇒ 00:29:02.279 Steve: And so, I would definitely follow up and get the account list from Snowflake. If they’ve… if they’re ones that have offered it, I would… I would try to… even just reaching out to salespeople, if you… if you don’t have
193 00:29:02.410 ⇒ 00:29:07.130 Steve: good traction with partner managers over at Snowflake. You know, you… people are looking…
194 00:29:07.130 ⇒ 00:29:09.509 Uttam Kumaran: We are getting good traction, but I’m also.
195 00:29:09.510 ⇒ 00:29:09.920 Holly Condos: willing to.
196 00:29:09.920 ⇒ 00:29:15.839 Uttam Kumaran: just hit up every salesperson there I’ve talked to. I think I’m sort of interested in, like.
197 00:29:15.910 ⇒ 00:29:29.690 Uttam Kumaran: Even if we don’t come to… because it’s so territory-based, so sometimes it’s like, I… I don’t… like, basically, I think about your Excel sheet where you’re mapping all the AEs and, like, what territory. That’s probably what we’ll end up doing.
198 00:29:29.690 ⇒ 00:29:38.359 Uttam Kumaran: But, like, I’m just gonna… I’m just gonna go hit more up and say, like, we’re doing snowflake deals, like, but I kind of want… part of our pitch right now is gonna be, like.
199 00:29:38.470 ⇒ 00:29:50.840 Uttam Kumaran: if… are there… is there any… like, for example, I would say, like, maybe we pitched someone, like, do you have anything that’s stalling? Do you have any circlebacks that you want to kind of reactivate with an SI partner? Like, I’m kind of thinking about, like, what is our offer to them?
200 00:29:50.840 ⇒ 00:29:51.280 Steve: I would…
201 00:29:51.280 ⇒ 00:29:53.560 Uttam Kumaran: We’re not coming to the table with a deal.
202 00:29:53.560 ⇒ 00:30:06.400 Steve: Yeah, I’d go a step further. So I would look at, you know, one, if you had the account list, you could be a bit more strategic about which… which… I don’t think you’re wrong in going wide, but I think you should focus in on where do you have
203 00:30:06.670 ⇒ 00:30:10.199 Steve: Where are you bringing value to the table in terms of
204 00:30:10.530 ⇒ 00:30:26.029 Steve: if you haven’t got… if you have their account list, and you look at a particular rep, and you don’t have any accounts that you’re currently in there, and you’re coming to them with your hands out, saying, you know, how can we get in here, right? Regardless of how you put that. And if you…
205 00:30:26.030 ⇒ 00:30:31.159 Steve: Had that account list, and you did a little bit of, like, just slow down to speed up a little bit to look at
206 00:30:31.450 ⇒ 00:30:51.830 Steve: Sure. Just Austin Market, Houston Market, Dallas Market, wherever you guys are centrally, like, located, or you have some customers, I would dig in there, and I would… I would… I would first look at the industries that you have success with, and, you know, even some of the… the peer accounts. So, you know, you shared this with me in the past. ABC is a good anchor account for you guys.
207 00:30:51.830 ⇒ 00:30:52.520 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
208 00:30:52.520 ⇒ 00:30:57.170 Steve: look at similar companies like ABC, or even just in that industry.
209 00:30:57.170 ⇒ 00:31:14.779 Steve: you know, where… where would you maybe find parity, or… or land more credibility with a sales rep? And then beyond that, you’re looking at their accounts, like, come to the table with actual research around 2 or, like, pick two to three target accounts. If they’ve got 200 accounts, or they’ve got 10 accounts.
210 00:31:14.780 ⇒ 00:31:27.819 Steve: pick two to three that are interesting to you, that you can tell a good story about, that, you know, pick up some signal, any signal, right? That they got a new CIO, or, you know, they’re leaning towards Snowflake, anything you can that.
211 00:31:27.820 ⇒ 00:31:29.960 Uttam Kumaran: Do a lot of their work, do the work for them.
212 00:31:29.960 ⇒ 00:31:30.820 Steve: Exactly.
213 00:31:30.820 ⇒ 00:31:43.869 Uttam Kumaran: I would say overall, like, the Snowflake reps are mostly unimpressive, like, most of them are new, and they’re just churning, like, their sales team churns through these folks. So, part of me going wide is to find the best one.
214 00:31:43.940 ⇒ 00:31:54.160 Steve: And then, like, kind of, like, sink our teeth, right? So I just… I wouldn’t over-index on trying to predict who’s gonna be best. When I say good, I mean, they don’t have to be good.
215 00:31:54.970 ⇒ 00:32:02.309 Steve: Obviously, it’s better if they are because they’re going to be able to get in front of more of their customers, but when I say they understand
216 00:32:02.340 ⇒ 00:32:16.229 Steve: like, how to position a partner and why that’s important, and that’s, you know, we always try to land the three whys when we’re talking to a rep. Why would you bring us in, or why Brain Forge? And that’s, you know, the number of at-bats and make that
217 00:32:16.230 ⇒ 00:32:41.120 Steve: you know, familiar to them around number of at-bats in this industry, or number of at-bats, these types of solutions that they care about, number of at-bats of, you know, the types of sales that you’ve unlocked with, you know, Snowflake, right? And try to tell that story of where was ABC before you guys walked in, right? Yeah. And so, you’re just trying to, like, when a realtor walks you through a house, you’re just trying to get to that point where you’re helping them place the
218 00:32:41.120 ⇒ 00:32:42.080 Steve: furniture.
219 00:32:42.080 ⇒ 00:32:55.249 Steve: This is where you’re trying to find that, you know, what is the hook that they… they need? What… what is the arrow that you need to put in their quiver? So even if they’re not a great salesperson, they’re still.
220 00:32:55.250 ⇒ 00:32:55.780 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
221 00:32:55.780 ⇒ 00:33:05.740 Steve: take that message forward, right? And you’re looking for the soft spots. You’ll know if you’re… when I say… assessing their skill set’s probably valid, but .
222 00:33:06.320 ⇒ 00:33:06.830 Uttam Kumaran: That’s what we mean?
223 00:33:06.860 ⇒ 00:33:08.599 Steve: Yeah, it’s more of, like.
224 00:33:09.050 ⇒ 00:33:13.569 Steve: do they get… do they get how to position you, and do they do it? And if you’re wasting.
225 00:33:13.570 ⇒ 00:33:13.890 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
226 00:33:13.890 ⇒ 00:33:31.539 Steve: If you’ve had a couple syncs with them, and you’re still building rapport, and then, you know, it gets to the point where you’ve given them collateral, and they seem to give you at least lip service, but they’re wasting your time, like, move on. Because at that point, you don’t need to have cadences for the sake of building… like, the relationship only matters when it’s.
227 00:33:31.620 ⇒ 00:33:40.459 Uttam Kumaran: when it’s mutual, or… Like, Holly, that first… yeah, Holly, that first Snowflake sales rep we talked to was pretty good, I forgot what his name was, but, like, he was the one that offered up his account.
228 00:33:40.460 ⇒ 00:33:44.590 Holly Condos: Oh, yeah, jordan… Jordan? Jared?
229 00:33:44.590 ⇒ 00:33:45.320 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
230 00:33:45.510 ⇒ 00:33:56.660 Uttam Kumaran: So we’ll… that’s a good example of someone who was like, he’s like, I’ll open up everything to you, and we can go, so all the other folks, they were like, yeah, tell me, like, let me know when to come in on your deal.
231 00:33:56.790 ⇒ 00:33:57.450 Uttam Kumaran: Right.
232 00:33:57.450 ⇒ 00:33:58.000 Holly Condos: What have you done?
233 00:33:58.380 ⇒ 00:33:59.040 Holly Condos: lately.
234 00:33:59.040 ⇒ 00:34:12.829 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I was like, we could… I don’t mind doing that, I don’t care, like, we’re gonna do it anyways. But, like, I want everybody to get to Jordan, and so maybe as soon as we get some more leverage, I could be like, great, I can bring you on, but, like, let’s do this… the Jordan-style thing as well.
235 00:34:12.830 ⇒ 00:34:13.300 Holly Condos: Where we.
236 00:34:13.300 ⇒ 00:34:15.790 Uttam Kumaran: We do the account mapping, and we put together the offer.
237 00:34:15.960 ⇒ 00:34:17.929 Steve: Yeah, and I think… yeah.
238 00:34:18.080 ⇒ 00:34:23.389 Holly Condos: Sorry, really quick question. So, I think, Utam kind of touched on it earlier, but…
239 00:34:23.620 ⇒ 00:34:26.100 Holly Condos: What do you think about…
240 00:34:26.460 ⇒ 00:34:41.320 Holly Condos: packaging what you just outlined, the three whys, if you will, into a one-pager that we could float with sales reps, right? Because we don’t want to do the partner deck with sales. We need to have it short, sweet.
241 00:34:41.370 ⇒ 00:34:48.539 Holly Condos: Because, at least in my experience, it’s a little bit tough to just find a rep and then say, hey, give me your account list.
242 00:34:48.949 ⇒ 00:34:49.920 Steve: Sure. Cold.
243 00:34:50.170 ⇒ 00:35:05.049 Steve: I don’t know… yeah, I mean, I think, for me, that’s always the talk track, is the three whys, and again, it’s, you know, why… why us? And you’re going to anchor on, you know, your areas of expertise, you know, the solutions that you’ve delivered in the past, right, that would resonate with them.
244 00:35:05.050 ⇒ 00:35:10.289 Steve: Right. You know, the relationships you have with other customers and whatnot.
245 00:35:10.290 ⇒ 00:35:16.970 Steve: And then, you know, you’re… this is… we always lend our partner credentials to show how much we’re driving revenue for them.
246 00:35:16.970 ⇒ 00:35:17.300 Holly Condos: Sure.
247 00:35:17.880 ⇒ 00:35:26.230 Steve: You don’t, you know, again, avoiding the credentials or the, you know, the checkboxes of certifications and whatnot, anchor on, like, how much revenue did you drive on.
248 00:35:26.660 ⇒ 00:35:44.639 Steve: per customer, right? If you don’t have, you know, the massive customer base, like, just focus on the big successes and kind of show, like, we went, you know, the last why would be, we can help land… we’ve unlocked, you know, revenue for Snowflake Solutions in 6 weeks, and this is how we.
249 00:35:45.080 ⇒ 00:36:02.470 Steve: Right? And so, I think it’s just, you know, they want to know… they want to know, like, some of the differentiators. That’s all you’re trying to build into your three whys, and your three whys can be different than, you know, than what I would just recap. I would… that’s the talk track. To get in front of them, I mean, don’t ever think that. It’s all about…
250 00:36:03.000 ⇒ 00:36:03.430 Steve: Okay.
251 00:36:03.650 ⇒ 00:36:23.999 Steve: Right? It’s all about reaching out to them, and if they don’t, you know, try different messaging, but I wouldn’t go… I wouldn’t go overboard on initial, like, credentializing, or even trying to sell them on meeting. I would just say, hey, like, we’re doing a lot of, you know, we’ve got some really strong clients, we’re doing a lot with Snowflake Solutions. Like, however, like, just couch one or two soundbites.
252 00:36:24.000 ⇒ 00:36:24.660 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
253 00:36:24.660 ⇒ 00:36:39.839 Steve: in an outreach, but just like you did on LinkedIn with me, right? Like, you’re gonna get people at the right time, right place, and you’re gonna get meetings, but you gotta go wide, and that’s why you need that list. It’s not only so you can do the strategic, kind of, pick your target, it’s also so you can go wide and just start, you know.
254 00:36:39.870 ⇒ 00:36:59.679 Steve: professionally staying on top of them. The one anecdote I wanted to share, which I didn’t, was I’ve rarely been on the other side of this conversation, where I’m Microsoft, or I’m Snowflake, and people are approaching me for business, right? I’m always in the seat of, I’m trying to get you to bring me in. I see. We’ve recently partnered with this, this,
255 00:37:00.130 ⇒ 00:37:01.370 Steve: cloud assessment.
256 00:37:01.420 ⇒ 00:37:20.350 Steve: company. They’re a vendor, I don’t know if you’ve heard of Dr. Migrate, but essentially they’re… they’re… they’re an application that sits… they install it into a client’s environment, it scans their on-prem, or their AWS, or their Azure environment, and it shows them what it would look like if they migrated to Azure in particular, or, like, cost.
257 00:37:20.350 ⇒ 00:37:20.860 Holly Condos: Interesting.
258 00:37:20.860 ⇒ 00:37:45.150 Steve: how much savings they would have, right? Those things have been around for a really long time. Migrations are not a massive play anymore. And so, the point in sharing the story is I’ve finally been on this… this is the last couple weeks that we’ve been working with this other partner… partner’s Matilda. And this partner is small, and they keep telling me how awesome they are, right? And how Microsoft’s bringing them into everything, but yet they’re not bringing me into the Microsoft discussions they’re having.
259 00:37:45.460 ⇒ 00:37:45.960 Steve: And they.
260 00:37:46.460 ⇒ 00:37:52.589 Steve: they threw a cadence on my calendar. We did… our… my RVP set up a meeting where we had to kind of watch this overview.
261 00:37:52.590 ⇒ 00:38:14.949 Steve: I’m not too keen on it, because I know Microsoft’s doing free assessments for their customers. We don’t need another free assessment coming from an external tool. Microsoft’s not gonna send. So, to me, I was already deflated on their messaging, right? Their sales rep, who was green, started putting cadences on my calendar, and I’ve… I didn’t show up to several of them, partly because I was just busy with other things, and, you know, I…
262 00:38:14.950 ⇒ 00:38:22.649 Steve: I… I have brought them up in conversation, so, I mean, she’s thinking, this guy’s not pushing me. I’ve brought them up in conversations where it was.
263 00:38:22.790 ⇒ 00:38:31.939 Steve: were valuable to a conversation with a client, but I wasn’t going hard on a go-to… a joint go-to-market thing with them. So she had 2 or 3 touchpoints with me.
264 00:38:32.320 ⇒ 00:38:41.700 Steve: You know, she’s clearly getting frustrated, but it felt like, to me, that she’s treating me like her BDR. That was not a good feeling. And you never want them to feel like you want them to be your BDR, right?
265 00:38:41.700 ⇒ 00:38:58.169 Uttam Kumaran: No, and that’s why we’re… we’re even treating the smaller partners like Snowflake. Like, we come in with so much, and we… and then we’re like, we will take care of 90% of this. Like, just make the intro, I… we know everything, we’ll do everything on the event side, and so…
266 00:38:58.170 ⇒ 00:39:02.269 Uttam Kumaran: we do a good job of doing that, and so I… for me, the biggest thing is we just don’t have
267 00:39:02.270 ⇒ 00:39:11.219 Uttam Kumaran: sales reps, and so what I need to scale is the assets and the process, because I can’t scale… we can’t… we’re not going to be able to scale the number of conversations
268 00:39:11.220 ⇒ 00:39:19.489 Uttam Kumaran: So it’s more of, like, okay, when we talk to the sales rep, can I get them, like, 3 core assets to just, like, talk for themselves, that really, you know…
269 00:39:19.490 ⇒ 00:39:43.749 Steve: Yeah, no, I think that’s critical, and it’s the plays, right? Your workshops that you start with, I know you had those on the website, I don’t know if they’re still there, but those workshops that you guys were doing initially, like, any of the entry points, like, how do you give them door openers? Like, that’s key, and you want to land that in that first meeting. And you want to monitor how often they’re doing it. And then, you know, put them in a nurture flow, where if they’re not, if they didn’t get you a client intro, like, you still want to send them
270 00:39:43.790 ⇒ 00:39:48.919 Steve: You want to manufacture net new reasons to reach out to them. It could be a customer success story, it could.
271 00:39:48.920 ⇒ 00:39:49.520 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
272 00:39:49.520 ⇒ 00:40:07.569 Steve: it could be a POV on, like, here’s how we’re helping, you know, here’s how we’re helping unlock more, you know, back office use cases for AI with our customers. Everybody’s coming to us, they want sexy, you know, sales-facing AI solutions and so forth, but, you know, you can reference a study of, like.
273 00:40:07.630 ⇒ 00:40:27.089 Steve: you know, Gartner put out that, you know, companies are budgeting for sales AI use cases, but they’re not focused on the admin back office, but everybody’s getting ROI on the admin back office. And so it’s like giving them, like, just coming up with reasons to follow up with them, whether it’s a study that you want to, you know, tie yourself to, or tie your approach to.
274 00:40:27.140 ⇒ 00:40:51.149 Steve: I would put them on a… like, if you’ve got a good relationship, and you have a reason, like, they’re bringing you… you gave them the initial collateral, you had that meeting, or maybe they ignored you, but you still want to put them in a different track of follow-up, right? Like, continue to follow up with them. If they’re not responding to you, put them on a monthly cadence of just follow-ups, trying to get that meeting. Once you’ve had that first meeting with them, and you’ve provided them with collateral, or you have a sense of where they’re playing, and what
275 00:40:51.150 ⇒ 00:41:01.079 Steve: what you might push with them, then I would say, you know, follow up with them on those specific things frequently. Like, she put a calendar, this is what I wanted to land. This was not…
276 00:41:01.080 ⇒ 00:41:09.060 Steve: something that I originally liked, and I still don’t like it, but it worked for her. She put a counter… a daily stand-up with me. I would never do that with a Microsoft browser.
277 00:41:09.650 ⇒ 00:41:25.239 Steve: And I just started skipping them, and then, like, I was… at one point, had the opening, so I just joined, and she’s also kind of hammering away at my boss, and not that he’s hammering away at me, but she’s, like, CC’ing him on stuff, so… like, it’s an aggressive… I wouldn’t take that aggressive tack, but I would say.
278 00:41:25.240 ⇒ 00:41:31.129 Uttam Kumaran: There’s no way. Someone else will have to get hired at Brainforge and do that. I cannot do that.
279 00:41:31.130 ⇒ 00:41:55.359 Steve: what ended up working, though, is one of the meetings she had, she’s like, yeah, well, you know, I started having some conversations with Microsoft, we’re bringing, you know, we’re bringing you into this conversation. That, to me, now we’re meeting on Monday, and I’m putting together a small campaign. I’m just gonna… it’s a give and take, right? Like, I’ll put together a small campaign for her that I’ll send out to my Microsoft reps, and maybe that’s a, you know, a way to bring her into that discussion. So there was… it was the goodwill.
280 00:41:55.360 ⇒ 00:41:56.249 Steve: Why is she frustrated.
281 00:41:56.250 ⇒ 00:41:56.850 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
282 00:41:56.850 ⇒ 00:42:15.460 Steve: wow, she stayed in front of me, and it unlocked, right? And so, I would find the right tact. You don’t need to do that. You guys can go as wide as you want to, because there’s no… you’re not hiring a sales rep and saying, you got this territory right now. Right. So farm wherever you want to, but put together, like, still do it strategically. Get a customer list from
283 00:42:15.590 ⇒ 00:42:19.030 Steve: from Snowflake, pick 10… pick a region, and then
284 00:42:19.410 ⇒ 00:42:23.000 Steve: sales reps, and then drill down into each one of those sales reps and get to target.
285 00:42:23.000 ⇒ 00:42:41.140 Steve: accounts, or align two of your plays. So then you start just emailing at first, maybe hitting them on Slack or Teams, wherever you can reach them, you know, just to say, hey, I want to have an introductory call. I’d love to tell you what we’re doing with Snowflake. And then, you know, that’s that. Like, you’re going to get some people that’ll say yes, and then you spend your time on those meetings.
286 00:42:41.140 ⇒ 00:42:58.699 Steve: you land whatever, you know, potential go-to-market material, like, tell them, here’s… here’s how we can help you unlock something here, like, have them talk about their accounts, treat it like a customer discovery call. Don’t come in and just… nobody wants to be pitched. So, if you do get that first call, don’t just pull up your collateral, you know.
287 00:42:58.980 ⇒ 00:43:16.569 Steve: Give them the 30-second pitch on Brainforge, ask them where they’re at with their accounts, right? And bring that idea to the table. If you did the research ahead of time around, this customer XYZ might need help here, bring that to the table, and let that unlock the discovery, and treat it like a discovery with them, and let them open it up. By the end of the call.
288 00:43:16.650 ⇒ 00:43:32.999 Steve: what… if you had 3… 3 arrows that you thought might work for them, they might have said something where you’re just gonna land that one. If it’s… if it’s that targeted, just give it to them and say, hey, like, when… you know, can you send… do you… can you make the customer intro this coming week? We’d love to get on a call with them and help you XYZ, like.
289 00:43:33.080 ⇒ 00:43:41.980 Steve: unlock the next conversation, or here’s what we can position to help get that conversation going even faster for you that you just, you know, brought up, that you had with the customer last week, something like that.
290 00:43:41.980 ⇒ 00:43:42.790 Uttam Kumaran: Right.
291 00:43:42.790 ⇒ 00:43:47.700 Steve: you know, then you’re just tracking, like, I wouldn’t go beyond one region if you get that account list until you’ve…
292 00:43:47.980 ⇒ 00:43:48.360 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
293 00:43:48.360 ⇒ 00:43:49.840 Steve: Done a good job of, like.
294 00:43:50.420 ⇒ 00:44:03.869 Steve: you know, at least a couple cycles of getting in front of them with emails, landing some of the first-time meetings, and then setting up a cadence or two. Like, what you will ultimately want… I wouldn’t set up cadences with people. You have that first-time call, you give them the collateral.
295 00:44:04.110 ⇒ 00:44:26.170 Steve: you might set a second meeting with that sales rep just to see… make sure that they followed through on that, and then I would set up cadences with them if you start that client intro, but since you don’t have to anchor yourself to them, I just put them into a nurture, like, automate some of that nurture, like, just put together… you… you own your alliance’s messaging, so whether it’s customer stories you want to line up for this week or whatever, just have a wave, like, plan…
296 00:44:26.170 ⇒ 00:44:30.590 Holly Condos: Plan the next 5 weeks, or whatever. Plan the next 2 months of.
297 00:44:30.590 ⇒ 00:44:46.050 Steve: alright, these are the people that we’re gonna… we haven’t had a meeting with, so we’re gonna try to get meetings with them. Here’s the material we’re gonna start with, and here’s… but keep the messaging simple for those. Once you’ve had the meeting, be a little bit more specific about buckets you’re putting them in, and just, like, plan out the… the cadences, how you’re…
298 00:44:46.050 ⇒ 00:45:00.690 Steve: how you’re kind of automating some of that outreach so that, you know, not one of you is stuck with having to follow up with individuals until you get traction, right? Once you get traction with somebody, and somebody’s got, you know, Joe’s got relationships, or Hannah, or you got a relationship, Udom, drive on…
299 00:45:00.690 ⇒ 00:45:04.690 Steve: Just find what works in terms of a cadence, and just stay in front of them.
300 00:45:05.020 ⇒ 00:45:14.909 Steve: For any of the meetings that you’re chasing. Once those… once those get stale, then put it back into a nurture where you’re keeping them updated on stuff, because who knows, man, their counts might suck, and that’s what.
301 00:45:15.220 ⇒ 00:45:15.590 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
302 00:45:15.590 ⇒ 00:45:33.530 Steve: things, and they might move territories next month, so you never know. So you just want to cast as wide of an edge as you can, but do it more strategically, and also get the cadences going, but do them at different levels. Like, invest your time where it matters, but don’t forget about the breadth, because the breadth will matter over time, right?
303 00:45:33.530 ⇒ 00:45:40.839 Uttam Kumaran: Totally, totally. I know we’re super far on time, Steve, yeah, I’ll let you go, but this is… this is so, so helpful.
304 00:45:40.840 ⇒ 00:45:42.149 Holly Condos: Very helpful. Thanks, Steve.
305 00:45:42.150 ⇒ 00:45:43.689 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, this is incredible. I appreciate it.
306 00:45:43.690 ⇒ 00:45:46.310 Holly Condos: I’m happy to connect with you, too. This is great.
307 00:45:46.310 ⇒ 00:45:51.780 Steve: Yeah, I’m happy to chat more, I love, again, yeah, Udom, we gotta get back out for some pickleball, but…
308 00:45:51.780 ⇒ 00:45:53.489 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, we do.
309 00:45:53.490 ⇒ 00:45:56.649 Steve: Where there’s not rain. But yeah, man,
310 00:45:56.650 ⇒ 00:45:58.129 Holly Condos: Come to San Diego.
311 00:45:58.460 ⇒ 00:46:00.040 Steve: Oh, that’d be great.
312 00:46:00.040 ⇒ 00:46:04.340 Holly Condos: We have lots ball sports. They’re hard to get, but we’ve got them.
313 00:46:04.340 ⇒ 00:46:05.090 Steve: Alright.
314 00:46:05.520 ⇒ 00:46:08.889 Steve: All right, well, yeah, I’d love to chat more. Sorry for the short time here, but I guess we’.
315 00:46:08.890 ⇒ 00:46:10.130 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, no, all good.
316 00:46:10.520 ⇒ 00:46:10.950 Steve: Alright, man.
317 00:46:10.950 ⇒ 00:46:11.730 Holly Condos: Thanks, Steve.
318 00:46:11.730 ⇒ 00:46:13.310 Uttam Kumaran: Thank you, Steve. Thanks, everyone, appreciate it.
319 00:46:13.310 ⇒ 00:46:13.840 Joe Lewandowski: Fair.
320 00:46:13.840 ⇒ 00:46:14.570 Uttam Kumaran: Bye.