Meeting Title: Brainforge x Snowflake Partner Strategy Sync Date: 2026-05-06 Meeting participants: Lisa Whall, Ardi
WEBVTT
1 00:02:50.880 ⇒ 00:02:52.809 Ardi: Hey, Lisa, how are you?
2 00:02:53.550 ⇒ 00:02:55.459 Lisa Whall: Hey! How are you?
3 00:02:55.460 ⇒ 00:02:56.660 Ardi: I’m wonderful.
4 00:02:57.670 ⇒ 00:03:05.800 Lisa Whall: Do we have to record this call? I always feel like… I’m choking. Choking.
5 00:03:05.800 ⇒ 00:03:08.560 Ardi: What’s going on? How you been?
6 00:03:08.560 ⇒ 00:03:20.319 Lisa Whall: Good! Good! It’s… I feel like I picked the right home for me. I like to be busy, I like to do a lot of different things, I like to test the limits of AI versus hiring people, so…
7 00:03:20.540 ⇒ 00:03:23.309 Lisa Whall: I feel like it’s a good fit, so…
8 00:03:23.310 ⇒ 00:03:34.040 Ardi: Awesome, I love it. I guess a good way to start, because, best way for me to get familiar, I’d love to understand, like, your role, not just specifically what you’re trying to do, but, like.
9 00:03:34.040 ⇒ 00:03:34.490 Lisa Whall: Right.
10 00:03:34.490 ⇒ 00:03:46.779 Ardi: what is the scope of it, like, your work from start, and, like, what does a win look like for you? Is it just purely sales, direct, is it through partners? I’d love to, just understand it first and foremost.
11 00:03:46.780 ⇒ 00:03:51.570 Lisa Whall: Yeah, so, Through Partners is my, my,
12 00:03:51.720 ⇒ 00:03:56.289 Lisa Whall: goal. So, just, I mean, not just…
13 00:03:56.460 ⇒ 00:04:03.640 Lisa Whall: the way that I’ve been successful in the past is you build relationships with individual account executives at the various
14 00:04:04.200 ⇒ 00:04:06.540 Lisa Whall: You know, partners, and…
15 00:04:06.820 ⇒ 00:04:14.949 Lisa Whall: you know, build some lead generation through those AEs, just to kind of keep it super simple. But there’s a lot behind the scenes.
16 00:04:15.650 ⇒ 00:04:30.619 Lisa Whall: you have to get set up in their portal, you have to register deals, you have to take certifications. So, once that foundation is in place, that kind of just becomes the rhythm of the business, but that’s one of the main reasons I want to talk to you, is
17 00:04:30.980 ⇒ 00:04:36.340 Lisa Whall: Gathering that data, let’s just say on deal registration to keep it simple.
18 00:04:36.450 ⇒ 00:04:56.009 Lisa Whall: So that, from the very first touchpoint to when we close, we’ve gathered all of this information that is required. Well, let’s just stick with Snowflake so we can keep things easy. So, we’ll talk about Snowflake today. So, Snowflake has a number of different data points that they need to collect in order for you to register.
19 00:04:56.010 ⇒ 00:05:11.459 Lisa Whall: an opportunity and get it approved, and then… and I’m not sure… I know you’re in the biz, so I’m sure that you know that there’s incentives tied to these deals. As you move up in these partner food chains, they’ll… like, if you close a million
20 00:05:11.740 ⇒ 00:05:15.110 Lisa Whall: Dollars of consumption, they’ll pay you.
21 00:05:15.440 ⇒ 00:05:31.689 Lisa Whall: you know, a certain amount. So there is financial ties, in addition to just getting more opportunities, right? As you register more and more deals, you become a more valued partner, and it snowballs. So it’s really, for a small company like ours, it is the best way to really
22 00:05:31.990 ⇒ 00:05:44.839 Lisa Whall: grow our business without hiring a lot of salespeople. Now, typically, in a larger organization, as the partner person, I would then hand off those relationships to a salesperson.
23 00:05:45.100 ⇒ 00:05:59.219 Lisa Whall: And as we grow, that will probably happen. We’ll kind of see how it evolves, but right now, because I’ve worked as an AE as well, I’ll be taking, you know, kind of, divide and conquer with Robert and Udom to, you know, disclose
24 00:05:59.440 ⇒ 00:06:02.659 Lisa Whall: As many deals as we generate through that process.
25 00:06:03.170 ⇒ 00:06:04.919 Lisa Whall: So does that… Makes sense.
26 00:06:04.920 ⇒ 00:06:08.159 Ardi: kind of, and this is more so my ignorance on it, because I’m not familiar with.
27 00:06:08.160 ⇒ 00:06:09.180 Lisa Whall: Oh, okay, okay, that’s.
28 00:06:09.180 ⇒ 00:06:09.710 Ardi: I know…
29 00:06:09.710 ⇒ 00:06:10.640 Lisa Whall: Go to…
30 00:06:10.640 ⇒ 00:06:18.360 Ardi: So, yeah, I know Snowflake as the company, but, like, I don’t understand the partner aspect of it, so…
31 00:06:18.360 ⇒ 00:06:31.460 Lisa Whall: Oh, oh, sure, yeah, absolutely. I… you never know where people are at, so this is great. So, companies like Snowflake, Microsoft, all the hyperscalers, and anybody that’s a big,
32 00:06:34.030 ⇒ 00:06:40.120 Lisa Whall: I’m sorry, software vendor usually has a partner program.
33 00:06:40.640 ⇒ 00:06:53.040 Lisa Whall: they… for a couple of reasons, they want… they want to make sure that you get certified on their tools, right? They want to make sure you do a great job in their implementation, so there’s a whole certification path and program.
34 00:06:54.760 ⇒ 00:07:09.479 Lisa Whall: they want to reward you for doing a good job. So, if you go in and you close a million dollar snowflake deal, hopefully you can rinse and repeat that at other clients. So, you register the deal, and you say, hey, I helped CTA,
35 00:07:09.930 ⇒ 00:07:19.569 Lisa Whall: close a million dollars, we were their service provider on that Snowflake implementation. So, you go into a portal, so they all have these partner portals.
36 00:07:19.780 ⇒ 00:07:28.309 Lisa Whall: You register when you get certified, so like, okay, they have a good bench. They have a good group of people. They’ve got 10 people certified in our software.
37 00:07:28.650 ⇒ 00:07:35.980 Lisa Whall: And they’ve closed, or helped us close, because a lot of times you’re working directly with Snowflake’s implementation team.
38 00:07:36.130 ⇒ 00:07:44.910 Lisa Whall: A lot of times you’re working with their account executives once you get in with them to land and expand. So, it’s really… I mean, there’s…
39 00:07:46.780 ⇒ 00:07:54.070 Lisa Whall: so many businesses built, like, there’s so many partners that only work with Microsoft, as an example.
40 00:07:54.420 ⇒ 00:07:56.820 Lisa Whall: You know, we’re gonna work with multiple
41 00:07:56.930 ⇒ 00:08:00.800 Lisa Whall: vendors, so we’re gonna be a little more agnostic, but…
42 00:08:00.800 ⇒ 00:08:01.120 Ardi: Right.
43 00:08:01.120 ⇒ 00:08:05.169 Lisa Whall: It’s… it’s huge business, because once you’re in with them, and you become a.
44 00:08:05.490 ⇒ 00:08:10.009 Lisa Whall: your partner, they start then sending opportunities your way.
45 00:08:10.450 ⇒ 00:08:13.720 Lisa Whall: So then, you can grow exponentially.
46 00:08:14.130 ⇒ 00:08:19.329 Lisa Whall: without, again, having to go direct. You can work with these partners. Does that make sense?
47 00:08:19.950 ⇒ 00:08:38.710 Ardi: Kind of. I think I’m on the same path as you. So, I’m gonna just try to simplify it even more. So, I’m talking to X company that does pool remodeling, and I’m doing Brain Forges services, and during that, scope of work, I say, oh, you need Snowflake.
48 00:08:39.120 ⇒ 00:08:46.459 Ardi: I help them get Snowflake, and that is where Snowflake comes and pays me, because I’m now a partner.
49 00:08:47.140 ⇒ 00:08:53.509 Ardi: Help me understand it in, like, in a direct selling aspect of it, why… why do I… yeah.
50 00:08:53.550 ⇒ 00:08:57.029 Lisa Whall: In a direct selling aspect, you refer Snowflake.
51 00:08:57.250 ⇒ 00:09:00.649 Lisa Whall: And you use Snowflake to build the solution.
52 00:09:00.790 ⇒ 00:09:01.510 Ardi: Okay.
53 00:09:01.870 ⇒ 00:09:03.230 Lisa Whall: Because you have
54 00:09:03.560 ⇒ 00:09:13.329 Lisa Whall: registered as a Snowflake partner, which is what I’m doing right now, is getting us up and running. Because I am a Snowflake partner, because you have to be part of their ecosystem.
55 00:09:13.330 ⇒ 00:09:13.820 Ardi: You’re right.
56 00:09:13.820 ⇒ 00:09:18.160 Lisa Whall: then you get rewarded from Snowflake.
57 00:09:18.480 ⇒ 00:09:24.470 Lisa Whall: for use pick… for… for recommending and implementing Snowflake versus Google.
58 00:09:25.080 ⇒ 00:09:38.349 Lisa Whall: And if we end up referring Google in, we also will get rewarded. So we’re going to say… some people build a whole business around one vendor. A lot of people do that in the Microsoft space. They won’t recommend any other.
59 00:09:38.480 ⇒ 00:09:48.469 Lisa Whall: tools. We’re gonna be agnostic, at least for now, so we have a lot of these different portals and relationships to manage, because if we decide we’re gonna…
60 00:09:48.620 ⇒ 00:09:52.280 Lisa Whall: implement Snowflake, we want to get…
61 00:09:52.550 ⇒ 00:10:06.709 Lisa Whall: the information, who is the Snowflake’s account executive there? Hey, we just did this pool implementation. And yes, you do get a SPF, as I’ll say. You’re really not in it for that SPF, for that money. It’s free money, you’ll take it.
62 00:10:06.710 ⇒ 00:10:12.730 Lisa Whall: when you… you get rewarded by these companies for recommending their tool. So that’s… that’s…
63 00:10:12.830 ⇒ 00:10:29.649 Lisa Whall: That’s nice, that’s gravy, but what you’re really looking for is building that relationship with that… we’ll say Jenny’s the account exec from Snowflake on that. Jenny, I did such a great job on this pool company. Oh my god, yeah, they love you, and they love Snowflake now, and you have certified people.
64 00:10:29.800 ⇒ 00:10:31.770 Lisa Whall: I have 10 other accounts.
65 00:10:33.100 ⇒ 00:10:38.119 Lisa Whall: I want to have you guys do those 10 other implementations. That’s…
66 00:10:38.370 ⇒ 00:10:40.189 Lisa Whall: Really, the essence of what we’re trying to do.
67 00:10:40.190 ⇒ 00:10:41.380 Ardi: Got it.
68 00:10:41.380 ⇒ 00:10:42.539 Lisa Whall: That’s, that breaks it, yeah.
69 00:10:42.540 ⇒ 00:10:49.110 Ardi: And from the Snowflake’s perspective, as a company, this whole partner ecosystem is…
70 00:10:49.260 ⇒ 00:10:54.550 Ardi: In other words, kind of a glorified, structured referral program for them.
71 00:10:54.550 ⇒ 00:10:56.330 Lisa Whall: Right, and vice versa.
72 00:10:56.470 ⇒ 00:10:57.100 Lisa Whall: Right.
73 00:10:57.100 ⇒ 00:11:00.240 Ardi: Okay, gotcha. And then for the account executive.
74 00:11:00.240 ⇒ 00:11:01.180 Lisa Whall: Yeah, yeah.
75 00:11:01.180 ⇒ 00:11:16.869 Ardi: The incentive is for them to sell more deals, because you’re bringing them more accounts, and then they will refer you to their accounts, because no matter who buys Snowflake, there has to be an implementation of it, and they want to use then Brainforce to implement it.
76 00:11:16.870 ⇒ 00:11:17.749 Lisa Whall: You got it.
77 00:11:18.000 ⇒ 00:11:32.830 Ardi: Perfect. Okay, I appreciate you going through that. Awesome. Okay, so now, going back to what you initially asked, you’re asking, how do I organize this in HubSpot? How do I keep track of these opportunities?
78 00:11:34.300 ⇒ 00:11:38.950 Lisa Whall: Let’s take a little bit of a step back. Let me show you…
79 00:11:39.790 ⇒ 00:11:43.870 Lisa Whall: Because this will make sense to you if I… I have, like, visual aids.
80 00:11:45.860 ⇒ 00:11:48.570 Lisa Whall: That’s not the right one.
81 00:11:49.700 ⇒ 00:11:51.749 Lisa Whall: Okay, cool. Alright.
82 00:11:59.060 ⇒ 00:12:03.289 Lisa Whall: Okay. What you’re about to see is really ugly, so be prepared.
83 00:12:03.450 ⇒ 00:12:04.310 Ardi: No, you’re good.
84 00:12:04.310 ⇒ 00:12:11.339 Lisa Whall: So… When you go into these portals, I can even pull up the Snowflake portal.
85 00:12:11.520 ⇒ 00:12:18.009 Lisa Whall: I need to enter all of this information So that they can…
86 00:12:18.170 ⇒ 00:12:30.729 Lisa Whall: approve my deal, and so that everything, you know, we get a reward, we get the introduction to the account exec, etc. So all of these portals, right now, we’re working with,
87 00:12:30.960 ⇒ 00:12:33.779 Lisa Whall: Google, AWS,
88 00:12:34.440 ⇒ 00:12:48.010 Lisa Whall: Snowflake, and then we’ve got some other smaller partners, but again, let’s just stay focused on Snowflake right now, and just assume. So I’ve got… sometimes, too, a customer like CTA might use Snowflake, they might use Google.
89 00:12:48.090 ⇒ 00:13:01.500 Lisa Whall: So, sometimes on this spreadsheet, I might have 10 deals under one customer, because you register multiple times. You register every time you close another piece of business.
90 00:13:02.700 ⇒ 00:13:13.399 Ardi: And this deal, sorry to cut you off, and this deal right now is already a BrainForge customer, that’s why you have all the details already. They’re already kind of using Snowflake, and you’re like, I want to now get it in the ecosystem officially.
91 00:13:13.520 ⇒ 00:13:26.999 Lisa Whall: Well, we’ve… we’ve… we’ve implemented Snowflake there, so now I… now I need… so that’s kind of the catch-up phase. Like, I’m catching up on everything, because nothing was registered before, and so even though we have a great reputation at Snowflake.
92 00:13:27.360 ⇒ 00:13:32.930 Lisa Whall: We weren’t getting any of the benefits, because we weren’t signed up properly in this… in their.
93 00:13:32.930 ⇒ 00:13:34.669 Ardi: That makes perfect sense.
94 00:13:35.010 ⇒ 00:13:35.730 Lisa Whall: program.
95 00:13:35.860 ⇒ 00:13:39.969 Lisa Whall: So, there’s just a lot of data that needs to be collected.
96 00:13:41.030 ⇒ 00:13:47.199 Lisa Whall: In order to… You know, fill out this… to register the deal.
97 00:13:48.310 ⇒ 00:13:54.220 Lisa Whall: So… Right now, this is just gonna live in a spreadsheet, right?
98 00:13:54.380 ⇒ 00:14:01.169 Lisa Whall: But, I mean, there’s so much… to me, I… I’m, like…
99 00:14:01.360 ⇒ 00:14:07.439 Lisa Whall: not freaking out, but, like, isn’t this what HubSpot’s for, to collect this type of information?
100 00:14:07.860 ⇒ 00:14:08.380 Ardi: Exactly.
101 00:14:08.380 ⇒ 00:14:19.320 Lisa Whall: I don’t… like, this is making me ill, but I have to get it done, you know? And what I noticed is… this was just weird to me, and maybe, like…
102 00:14:19.660 ⇒ 00:14:22.070 Lisa Whall: you know, I’ve been using CRMs for 20 years.
103 00:14:22.440 ⇒ 00:14:32.550 Lisa Whall: we don’t have deal description, and Robert said that we just started doing that, like, how do we not have the description of the deal? I mean, that’s… am I missing something?
104 00:14:32.550 ⇒ 00:14:35.229 Ardi: In terms of… when you say description, what do you mean a description?
105 00:14:35.230 ⇒ 00:14:40.159 Lisa Whall: He implemented, like, every time I’ve ever used any CRM.
106 00:14:40.970 ⇒ 00:14:48.890 Lisa Whall: Just describing what we’re doing, describing the opportunity. Like, a paragraph of what we’re… Dewey.
107 00:14:48.890 ⇒ 00:15:03.960 Ardi: HubSpot is a little bit different, where, like, I hear you, the description is basically… can be categorized through, like, what pipeline it’s in, what stage it’s in, the amount, you know, the companies that attach to it. You can have notes on there if you want to write out, like…
108 00:15:04.340 ⇒ 00:15:05.560 Ardi: In long form of, like.
109 00:15:06.450 ⇒ 00:15:10.899 Lisa Whall: HubSpot before, and every… I’ve got a pushback. Every…
110 00:15:11.330 ⇒ 00:15:26.639 Lisa Whall: I mean, if somebody gets hit by a bus, you have to know what you’re talking to the customer about, and there’s always a required field of an overview of the deal. It’s required in any CRM I’ve ever used in my life, and it’s attached to the deal level. Like, it just brings.
111 00:15:26.640 ⇒ 00:15:27.090 Ardi: I guess…
112 00:15:27.940 ⇒ 00:15:39.550 Ardi: I hear what you’re saying, and we can… that’s up to you guys and Brainforce to add it. I just know, like, me looking at deals on HubSpot, based on the pipeline it’s in, based on the stage it’s in.
113 00:15:39.550 ⇒ 00:15:59.699 Ardi: And if I’m very clear about my ICP, I don’t need a description to tell me what it is. It should be very clear based on, hey, we’ve got, client ABC, it’s in the negotiation stage, amount is $35,000, looks like that… I look at the activity tracker, looks like our last communication was a week ago, we have a meeting coming up two weeks ago.
114 00:15:59.700 ⇒ 00:16:03.179 Ardi: That’s it. And to your point, I don’t see anything wrong.
115 00:16:03.180 ⇒ 00:16:15.759 Lisa Whall: If I’m an executive, what… are you implementing Google? Are you, doing a strategy engagement? Are you implementing Snowflake? Are you doing multiple things? Like.
116 00:16:15.760 ⇒ 00:16:20.880 Ardi: That’s a good point, yeah, so if it’s complex like that, to your point, then yes, description works, but also…
117 00:16:20.910 ⇒ 00:16:22.060 Lisa Whall: We’re not a product…
118 00:16:22.060 ⇒ 00:16:23.619 Ardi: Properties as well, right?
119 00:16:23.790 ⇒ 00:16:41.769 Lisa Whall: Yeah, so that’s… that is something that we have to give. I… if I pull up CTA and look at the deals, I should be able to understand, on an overview basis, everything that we’ve ever done at CTA. I’m talking just an overview, it can be a couple paragraphs. I mean.
120 00:16:42.220 ⇒ 00:16:43.050 Lisa Whall: That…
121 00:16:44.120 ⇒ 00:17:03.109 Ardi: Yeah, that’s up to them, in terms of how they want to do it. To me, at a scaling option, having a paragraph is still creating too much work for you to see what’s going on with the whole deal from just a paragraph. Ideally, from a CRM standpoint, and I’m not an implementation person, by the way, so I’m just in an advisory role in there, so I’m not a CRM guy, like, implementation guy.
122 00:17:03.670 ⇒ 00:17:15.720 Ardi: But ideally, you would probably categorize customized properties for that, so when I look at a deal, I can see, okay, this one is a Google engagement, and whatever else you mentioned, because even in a description.
123 00:17:15.720 ⇒ 00:17:16.579 Lisa Whall: But that’s cool.
124 00:17:16.589 ⇒ 00:17:17.829 Ardi: in a report, right?
125 00:17:17.829 ⇒ 00:17:35.609 Lisa Whall: No, I… look, trust me, I’m a former CPA, I’m a data person, I’ve been a COO, like, totally tracking with you, and I love that you’re… you’re 100% right and accurate on that. So, I just… we have to… I have to be able to go in some way, shape, or form
126 00:17:36.399 ⇒ 00:17:40.709 Lisa Whall: as we grow, and I, as meaning we collectively, not I,
127 00:17:40.879 ⇒ 00:17:50.279 Lisa Whall: I need to know what the hell we’re doing at these companies, and we’re not a product company, so it’s, you know, in a product company, that’s easy peasy. They’re gonna buy…
128 00:17:50.489 ⇒ 00:17:55.539 Lisa Whall: you know, you have maybe 4 SKUs, or even SKUs, right? Like.
129 00:17:55.540 ⇒ 00:17:57.279 Ardi: Yeah. It’s much easier.
130 00:17:57.280 ⇒ 00:18:06.679 Lisa Whall: Yeah, it’s just we have to figure that out, because I’m flying blind, and I’m only, you know, kind of the second AE coming in, and if I’m an AE.
131 00:18:08.470 ⇒ 00:18:13.850 Ardi: It’s a mess, yeah. And you noticed the other day, so, just, just a little background on me.
132 00:18:13.850 ⇒ 00:18:15.509 Lisa Whall: Yeah, hopefully, I’m sorry, this jumped.
133 00:18:15.510 ⇒ 00:18:21.950 Ardi: It doesn’t matter, I just think it’ll help you understand my challenges with it. So, I’m,
134 00:18:21.950 ⇒ 00:18:46.770 Ardi: I’ve been a sales leader for, like, 12 years now, so even right now, I’m still, I’m heading sales for a digital health company right now, during the days, and Utam’s one of my really, really good friends. I met, like, 4 years ago in Austin here, so I’ve seen Brainforge, from literally nothing when he was in a coffee shop starting it. So, I just decided to… they’re finally growing to, they have real revenue, and they’re growing, so…
135 00:18:46.770 ⇒ 00:19:06.060 Ardi: I kind of jumped in, and I’m just helping out, see where they’re at. And to your point, this is the exact reason why I’m here, and if you recognize that call with Robert a few days ago, that’s kind of the gap right now, right? And I do this advisory role for a couple of other companies, so it’s very common.
136 00:19:06.060 ⇒ 00:19:10.719 Ardi: Where you’ve done it a certain way, and he loves a spreadsheet.
137 00:19:10.720 ⇒ 00:19:32.849 Ardi: And it’s there, but it’s just… it’s not scalable, and you are Exhibit A in showcasing that. When someone comes in, it’s a nightmare. I don’t know where to go, I don’t know how to stay organized, and then for them, I need to convince more so Robert and Utam that this is actually hurting them, too. They’re not feeling it yet, because Robert says, I have my spreadsheet, I’m good.
138 00:19:32.850 ⇒ 00:19:35.549 Ardi: I don’t need it. You were there on the call, he was pushing back.
139 00:19:35.550 ⇒ 00:19:37.090 Lisa Whall: I was there, and I was like.
140 00:19:37.810 ⇒ 00:19:38.180 Ardi: Yeah.
141 00:19:38.260 ⇒ 00:19:39.090 Lisa Whall: I hate.
142 00:19:39.090 ⇒ 00:19:50.450 Ardi: Yeah, he was pushing back on me. Now, the challenge for them, and this is whether they like to hit or not, I’m a straight shooter with them, and I’m gonna meet with you some later this week. I love it, is…
143 00:19:50.490 ⇒ 00:20:01.220 Ardi: the HubSpot changes, it’s gonna take, like, a heavy lift for them to implement, and it’s gonna cost them some dollars, and again, I’m not… that takes a lot of time, and it’s not pretty.
144 00:20:01.220 ⇒ 00:20:04.509 Lisa Whall: Got it, so you’re just selling them pure… got it, okay, good.
145 00:20:04.510 ⇒ 00:20:07.560 Ardi: I’m telling them where they need to go, and .
146 00:20:07.560 ⇒ 00:20:09.650 Lisa Whall: This is great information, thank you.
147 00:20:09.650 ⇒ 00:20:14.449 Ardi: Yeah, but again, like, I’m looking at this, like, just a quick snapshot of it, I think…
148 00:20:15.050 ⇒ 00:20:27.409 Ardi: In short, what you need is a different pipeline away from the sales pipeline. You need a partner pipeline. We need to figure out the stages of a partner pipeline based on what you think is a typical journey of a partner. And then.
149 00:20:27.410 ⇒ 00:20:35.390 Ardi: to what you’re alluding to, can we create a deal view with the right properties? So I don’t even… again, I hear you with the descriptions.
150 00:20:35.390 ⇒ 00:20:36.439 Ardi: The more we.
151 00:20:36.440 ⇒ 00:20:38.969 Lisa Whall: That was probably the lowest hanging fruit possible of just.
152 00:20:38.970 ⇒ 00:20:46.710 Ardi: Oh, no, it’s great, but if we’re gonna do that, I would say get the description into different properties, because the more you can prop, like.
153 00:20:46.710 ⇒ 00:20:54.070 Lisa Whall: Oh yeah, no, I know, I know. Trust me, I get it. You don’t have to convince me. I gotcha. We’re cool, like, absolutely, that’s the right way.
154 00:20:54.600 ⇒ 00:20:58.629 Lisa Whall: 100%. Like, no need… yeah, I didn’t mean to cut you off.
155 00:20:58.630 ⇒ 00:21:01.610 Ardi: I wasn’t trying to convince you, no, I was just trying to tell you what needs to get done.
156 00:21:01.610 ⇒ 00:21:01.990 Lisa Whall: data.
157 00:21:01.990 ⇒ 00:21:03.199 Ardi: You already know it, you know it.
158 00:21:03.200 ⇒ 00:21:09.610 Lisa Whall: Data is… Yeah, we need to… I… I guess when…
159 00:21:13.170 ⇒ 00:21:15.560 Lisa Whall: Maybe it’s just a HubSpot thing?
160 00:21:16.790 ⇒ 00:21:21.680 Lisa Whall: How can I say this? Okay. CTA is a customer, right?
161 00:21:21.680 ⇒ 00:21:22.110 Ardi: Okay.
162 00:21:22.110 ⇒ 00:21:23.120 Lisa Whall: We have a deal.
163 00:21:24.560 ⇒ 00:21:26.759 Ardi: It’s a deal closed, they’re a customer.
164 00:21:26.760 ⇒ 00:21:29.369 Lisa Whall: Or even, we’re just working on it right now, and…
165 00:21:29.370 ⇒ 00:21:29.860 Ardi: Okay.
166 00:21:29.860 ⇒ 00:21:34.310 Lisa Whall: We’re… it’s a snowflake deal. So, in essence, it’s a partner deal.
167 00:21:36.840 ⇒ 00:21:44.150 Lisa Whall: It’s still going to have the same cadence, it’s still going to have a salesperson, it’s just going to be attached
168 00:21:44.340 ⇒ 00:21:47.080 Lisa Whall: To a partner so that we can track it.
169 00:21:47.310 ⇒ 00:21:51.229 Lisa Whall: as a partner, Lead, so we can say.
170 00:21:51.340 ⇒ 00:21:57.040 Lisa Whall: From a data perspective, that we had… 20 snowflake deals?
171 00:21:57.630 ⇒ 00:22:00.870 Lisa Whall: And… Here are the results.
172 00:22:02.320 ⇒ 00:22:06.229 Lisa Whall: how does, like, I don’t want to overcomplicate things.
173 00:22:06.410 ⇒ 00:22:13.970 Lisa Whall: Why would that live in a partner pipeline versus just a deal and have a partner attached? Like, why would we need a separate pipeline?
174 00:22:13.970 ⇒ 00:22:31.140 Ardi: You don’t have to. I’m just thinking, if you’re operating solely in the partner, and Robert and Utam want to expand the direct selling motion as well, directly with companies, to me, the different pipelines just gives a different snapshot of it, and we can track the conversion rates much more simple, because right now.
175 00:22:31.140 ⇒ 00:22:41.479 Ardi: If you have the partners in with the normal direct ones, it’s hard for me to gauge, hey, when we have an intro to going to the demo book, that might not be even the motion for a partner.
176 00:22:41.480 ⇒ 00:22:57.209 Ardi: Yeah, I mean, you just explained it. It’s not a normal motion for an AE of a different company to send it. It’s in the ecosystem. So, only because of what you mentioned, I thought it would be easier to have a different pipeline to make things clean cut, and you could build out the stages, because
177 00:22:57.210 ⇒ 00:23:05.449 Ardi: it doesn’t mimic a normal… like, if I were to build a Brainforge pipeline from scratch, it would be… they have, like, 12 stages. I mentioned it on the call with Robert.
178 00:23:05.450 ⇒ 00:23:17.159 Ardi: there needs to be, like, 4 or 5 stages. I had an intro discovery, I got a demo booked, I had a negotiation, I had a contract sent. Right. If you tell me those are the same for partner, there’s no difference, then sure, you can put it…
179 00:23:17.460 ⇒ 00:23:20.189 Lisa Whall: The partner is just an overlay?
180 00:23:21.110 ⇒ 00:23:23.840 Lisa Whall: In my mind, at least at where we’re at right now.
181 00:23:24.040 ⇒ 00:23:29.960 Lisa Whall: And it’s a means to… I need to think about this.
182 00:23:30.340 ⇒ 00:23:33.570 Lisa Whall: It’s still gonna be the same motion. It’s the same selling motion.
183 00:23:33.970 ⇒ 00:23:45.069 Ardi: Great. Then in that sense, that we would have to just create specific properties, maybe just one, just being, like, partner, and then in that partner, having a drop-down, Snowflake, Google, AWS.
184 00:23:45.070 ⇒ 00:23:46.110 Lisa Whall: Exactly.
185 00:23:46.110 ⇒ 00:23:47.080 Ardi: as that?
186 00:23:47.080 ⇒ 00:23:53.790 Lisa Whall: That’s what I think we should do. The only thing, and again, just… you’re not gonna be… I’ll take notes on this, is…
187 00:23:54.190 ⇒ 00:24:09.220 Lisa Whall: the thing that we would want to know in this whole thing is, did the partner bring it to us, or did we bring it to them? That’s a metric that we do want to understand, and that’s kind of where a partner pipeline… we don’t need… I don’t think we need to get
188 00:24:09.550 ⇒ 00:24:18.400 Lisa Whall: it could be solved by, like, literally a checkbox, right? Did we bring them the part… deal, or did they bring us the deal? Because it…
189 00:24:19.200 ⇒ 00:24:36.320 Lisa Whall: it doesn’t… like, as long as we’re growing, it matters in the sense, like, are we doing a good job? Because ideally, we want them bringing us tons of deals. We’re happy to bring them deals, too, but we’re small, they’re big, so we want 60%,
190 00:24:36.440 ⇒ 00:24:44.080 Lisa Whall: Or more of our deals, to be given to us by partners. So that is a nuance that…
191 00:24:45.370 ⇒ 00:24:52.109 Lisa Whall: We’ll want to track, because if we’re just bringing them partners, great, we’re getting that extra money in the deal registration, but…
192 00:24:52.130 ⇒ 00:25:05.080 Lisa Whall: we’re not growing the relationship and the trust. They’re not bringing us into deals, so what are we doing wrong? Like, why do we keep bringing them? We don’t want it one-sided. We want it healthy. You do want to bring them deals, too. That gives them…
193 00:25:05.080 ⇒ 00:25:13.550 Lisa Whall: trust and everything, so it’s not like you don’t… you want it 90%. You do want to bring them deals, but outside of, like, strategy deals.
194 00:25:14.680 ⇒ 00:25:29.890 Lisa Whall: you know, hopefully, we want to attach whenever we can to get that free money and to get registered and to get more credibility. So, I think that’ll make sense to you, but it sounds like that’s not really going to be your decision. It’s… it’s going to be whoever…
195 00:25:29.890 ⇒ 00:25:35.580 Ardi: Yeah, I’m gonna, I’m gonna tell them that, you know, in that way, what you’re talking about is just deal source, so…
196 00:25:35.580 ⇒ 00:25:36.130 Lisa Whall: filter.
197 00:25:36.740 ⇒ 00:25:41.210 Lisa Whall: This is easy peasy. Yeah, exactly. Deal source. Perfect, yes. I love it.
198 00:25:42.360 ⇒ 00:25:46.820 Lisa Whall: I love it. That’s why it’s like, let’s keep this as simple as possible.
199 00:25:46.820 ⇒ 00:25:59.930 Ardi: Yeah. Awesome. No, they just… they need to make a cultural shift of, like, going to HubSpot, but I think I get Robert’s side, too. I get it, it’s… it’s… they would have to devote a lot of attention, and frankly, they’ll have to invest in it.
200 00:25:59.930 ⇒ 00:26:00.290 Lisa Whall: Into.
201 00:26:00.290 ⇒ 00:26:19.610 Ardi: making their house up, but if you ask me, it’s worth it, because sooner than later, you’re gonna have to do that, because they can’t just live on spreadsheets, and I know Robert loves his spreadsheet, and that’s great, but with AEs, it’s just not gonna work. It’ll work, and I told Robert the other day, you heard me, I was like, if it’s just you and you, Tom, yeah, you don’t need this.
202 00:26:19.610 ⇒ 00:26:24.119 Ardi: You know, you don’t need HubSpot, you guys can be on calls, but I’m having trouble…
203 00:26:24.340 ⇒ 00:26:31.070 Ardi: even under… I mean, frankly, Lisa, I don’t even know how many deals they’ve closed. Based on what Robert was saying, he said…
204 00:26:31.070 ⇒ 00:26:31.520 Lisa Whall: I don’t…
205 00:26:31.520 ⇒ 00:26:46.310 Ardi: I don’t even know how many customers there are, I don’t know what the pipeline looks like, I have no clue. And I think that’s… which is okay, because it lives in their head, and in their head it makes sense, but for me, I don’t know, I have no idea where they’re at.
206 00:26:46.310 ⇒ 00:26:49.260 Lisa Whall: so much better, because usually I can come in.
207 00:26:49.390 ⇒ 00:26:56.959 Lisa Whall: any company and be, like, immediately know the CRM, it’s like they’re all kind of the same. Like you said, there’s, like, a quirk here, or…
208 00:26:57.190 ⇒ 00:27:11.049 Lisa Whall: they call leads, you call them deals, you call them ops, like, there’s always those nuances that you learn, but usually you pick it up in, like, an hour, you know what I mean? And I feel really stupid, because I’m like, where is all the stuff?
209 00:27:11.050 ⇒ 00:27:14.780 Ardi: No, you’re not. I’m feeling the same way, and I think it’s,
210 00:27:14.840 ⇒ 00:27:28.499 Ardi: The fact that it’s not simple, and even myself, like, I’m very confused at times, like, that’s why I was even… like, and again, some of it is my ignorance, I haven’t been in data agencies and the work they do at a very technical level.
211 00:27:28.500 ⇒ 00:27:49.450 Ardi: But, sometimes it’s the lack of simplicity. Like, how many customers? How long does it take you to close someone when you talk to them? Simple questions like that. When I ask them, they’re not able to answer, which is why I’m trying to help them out, because it was the conversations with Utam that I… it was very cloudy, and I know they’re doing well, but he’s not able to…
212 00:27:49.450 ⇒ 00:27:57.050 Ardi: kind of answer to it, and it’s kind of like, well, I met a guy at an event, you see Slack, I have another meeting set up, and I…
213 00:27:57.210 ⇒ 00:28:01.669 Ardi: I’m pushing them to be able to explain this as if I’m, like, a fifth grader.
214 00:28:01.670 ⇒ 00:28:03.680 Lisa Whall: Right, that’s what I need to.
215 00:28:04.260 ⇒ 00:28:13.600 Lisa Whall: Perfect, yeah, I, I’m a very systematic, because of my CPI background, I… the only way that you can
216 00:28:13.860 ⇒ 00:28:30.619 Lisa Whall: scale, anything is to be systematic in everything that you do, and now we’re layering on AI. So my ultimate goal, just to kind of get lofty for a minute, I want to get away from the computer as a sales and partner person. I want
217 00:28:31.180 ⇒ 00:28:34.309 Lisa Whall: All of this to magically populate
218 00:28:34.870 ⇒ 00:28:46.869 Lisa Whall: So that I’m back selling like I did 20 years ago, where I was out on the golf course, or with people, and doing what UTM’s doing is what all salespeople should be doing
219 00:28:47.080 ⇒ 00:28:51.079 Lisa Whall: And so, everything that I touch, everything that I look at.
220 00:28:52.450 ⇒ 00:29:02.270 Lisa Whall: if I’m entering data even once, and it’s not scraping it from, like, a conversation, that irritates me, right? And if I’m entering it twice, like we’re doing here.
221 00:29:03.040 ⇒ 00:29:03.620 Ardi: Yeah.
222 00:29:03.620 ⇒ 00:29:04.310 Lisa Whall: I am, like.
223 00:29:04.310 ⇒ 00:29:04.740 Ardi: music.
224 00:29:04.740 ⇒ 00:29:10.549 Lisa Whall: But I know it’s a crawl, walk, run. I’m not saying we’re gonna fix it overnight, but that’s… my headspace is…
225 00:29:11.200 ⇒ 00:29:29.550 Lisa Whall: ideally, if you do a discovery call, and you’ve got… I just call it a checklist, like, I’m gonna make sure I capture what their BI tool is, what their data warehouse is, what their blah blah blah, have them be drop-downs, like you said. These are, like, we just build out, easy.
226 00:29:30.940 ⇒ 00:29:50.270 Lisa Whall: we’ve got a complete customer profile at the end of the call, and that only takes an extra few minutes. People don’t mind answering those questions, and it’s not a distraction. I mean, usually you’re there because they have a specific problem. Let them talk, 90%, and you just work it in. Hey, I just want to make sure I understand your full environment.
227 00:29:50.790 ⇒ 00:30:06.130 Lisa Whall: ask these, and then you get all this information that you can enter, not only just the partner portal, but then you have a whole holistic view of the customer and where we can bring in partners. I mean, I’m being partner biased right here, but, you know.
228 00:30:06.580 ⇒ 00:30:09.450 Lisa Whall: What are the 10 projects that we can…
229 00:30:09.880 ⇒ 00:30:16.719 Lisa Whall: not… I always just say get one under your belt, like, don’t distract, but as you’re building out that customer profile.
230 00:30:16.890 ⇒ 00:30:23.730 Lisa Whall: because we’re in services and that product, I mean, the sky’s the limit when you’re in services, right? And the kind that we’re in, to an extent.
231 00:30:23.850 ⇒ 00:30:27.819 Lisa Whall: So… Getting that profile right up front.
232 00:30:28.320 ⇒ 00:30:32.930 Lisa Whall: literally gathering all this data and really having a robust HubSpot.
233 00:30:33.170 ⇒ 00:30:37.530 Lisa Whall: Just saves you so much time and effort.
234 00:30:37.940 ⇒ 00:30:50.989 Ardi: Yes. I agree. I agree with you, yeah. Less data entry for salespeople, the better. We’re salespeople are not meant to sit and put data, and if you get them to do that, it never works out well, and never has
235 00:30:51.400 ⇒ 00:30:52.940 Ardi: experience. So…
236 00:30:52.940 ⇒ 00:30:59.429 Lisa Whall: never works. That’s why I’m saying, if you can scrape it, if you have a checklist, I’m just using that term, a discovery…
237 00:30:59.430 ⇒ 00:31:15.619 Lisa Whall: over… whatever everybody calls, everybody has different terminology, where you know that when you get… and you train an AA right, and it’s like, dude, you… you gotta gather up all this information, like, unless it’s a no-go, like you said, also qualify out early. Big believer in that.
238 00:31:15.620 ⇒ 00:31:26.959 Lisa Whall: But if it is somebody that’s viable, hey, do you have, like, 5 minutes? I just want to understand the rest of your environment, just so I understand the whole thing. We’re not going to talk, but we’re going to focus on your problem.
239 00:31:26.960 ⇒ 00:31:37.149 Lisa Whall: But I just want to make sure that I understand everything for the long term. You know, however you want to do it. And then you can get it all done at one time during the discovery call. And then in 6 months.
240 00:31:37.460 ⇒ 00:31:42.279 Lisa Whall: maybe they come back around and you’re like, oh, that’s right, they’re Google, they have Snowflake.
241 00:31:42.690 ⇒ 00:31:43.160 Ardi: Yep.
242 00:31:43.160 ⇒ 00:31:43.760 Lisa Whall: I mean, I’m just…
243 00:31:43.760 ⇒ 00:31:44.140 Ardi: Exactly.
244 00:31:44.140 ⇒ 00:31:46.179 Lisa Whall: I’m preaching to the choir here.
245 00:31:46.180 ⇒ 00:31:58.239 Ardi: No, no, you’re spot on, I totally get it. Okay, Lisa, I have a hard stop here, but hit me up on Slack, I’d love to do this more, and this was actually very validating of, I think.
246 00:31:58.240 ⇒ 00:32:20.680 Ardi: what needs to happen, so I’ll have more conversations with Robert Utom. They need more of a mindset shift, I think, before we do anything else, and for them to realize the pain. I can… you and I could talk about the pain that’s evidently there, but if they’re not feeling it, or they don’t think it’s there, we won’t be able to move. So, I’ll continue my work here and my conversations with both of them to…
247 00:32:20.680 ⇒ 00:32:22.680 Ardi: Hopefully we can take the right steps and…
248 00:32:22.850 ⇒ 00:32:25.500 Ardi: getting that HubSpot to, I think, where it needs to be.
249 00:32:25.760 ⇒ 00:32:27.590 Lisa Whall: That sounds great. Thank you so much for your time.
250 00:32:27.590 ⇒ 00:32:30.060 Ardi: Awesome! Of course. Thanks, Lisa. Speak soon.
251 00:32:30.110 ⇒ 00:32:31.100 Lisa Whall: Bye.