Transcript:

We'll just roll through it. We'll do like ABR. I'll be recording and we'll just like let it go. I think I got everything. My wife's gonna kill me because I didn't look through the check sheet. Since this is being recorded, I don't know what you're talking about. I absolutely saw you go through the checklist and you definitely did that. Cheers! part two! What are we drinking? This is a Testerosa Chardonnay. Like I said, since you're visiting me locally, wanted you to have a little bit of the Las Gattas fun. Oh, is that from Las Gattas? Oh yeah, this is one of the most interesting and most famous wineries out in the Los Gatos mountain areas, which by the way, Los Gatos and Santa Cruz are particularly well known for having great Chardonnays. I'm not sure if I've had one from Los Gatos. now you have. Check that one off of the list, which you also looked at. I love it. love it. Well, it's nice to be in your home. Like you said, is part two. Had you on the last podcast when I was doing Foundry IDG. I still love the story though, because you reached out to me out of the blue and said, look, you're just having these large enterprises all in. There's a lot more. of us that aren't at large enterprises doing partner marketing, like you should have a startup on. And I'm like, well, why don't you come on the show? I listen, I fully on that one. you know, I know who I am. And I know the way that I'll go about my outreach. But I will say this. That conversation was actually a lot easier than I thought it was going to be, you know, instead of me pitching something. You were very, very formidable to the idea from the jump. And I think it's because the essence of what you're doing is really founded on the fact that you're trying to have a comprehensive conversation. In order to do that, you've got to go out and talk to a lot of people and you are very receptive to that. So that worked in my favor. I appreciate that. That's my goal. I want to learn and I get to learn and also share it with everybody else along the way. I'm actually really excited about this because I did zero prep for this. Yeah, this came together, think this morning or maybe last night, said like, technically last night at like 10 o'clock. I went to bed before I saw the yes. And so I didn't know, I woke up this morning like, oh, guess we're doing it. And I've always prepped for every single one of these. Yeah. And I actually don't want to prep. so I'm trying to, this is kind of like a test for me. I want to get away from it because I don't know, I feel like, you know, people have heard the episodes think they're great. And, you know, I'm not too my own whore there, but I don't think they're as good as they could be because I want more authenticity. I want more real conversations. And I feel like the more I prep, the more I kind of pull myself away from that. So I don't know. We'll see how it goes. I think it's going to be great. You know, I will say this. I think that the prep benefits probably the person on the other side of the table more than you realize, right? So I am not nervous about your performance. It's warming. So like, let's just set it up that way. We'll see where it Well, I think the goal of a good host should make the think the you know guests walk away feeling like they did a great job so if you walk away feeling like did a bad job that's on me. you. Not on you okay. So ⁓ let's get an update so you know last time I met you you were a cribble you were helping them you're doing a lot You know, what's it been like? How long ago was that? Like a year two? Almost a year. Well, maybe it's actually been a little over a year now. Yeah, I think it was like May last year or something. Something like that. I don't know. But yeah, so a lot can happen in 365 days. you know, I have now since exited Cribble, you know, had an incredible run there of almost four years, ended it, you know, with ⁓ peak experiences of partner marketing there. so I'm just, I love that experience. ⁓ Right now, I'm really serving kind of like fractional VP and leadership roles for companies, including a company that I'm working with right now called Walkme. Fractional VP and leadership roles, what does that mean? Yeah, so essentially, depending on the way that the company constructs it, and of course the way that you can pitch it, ⁓ they will bring you in for portions of a role, right? it's basically it's not a full-time employee, but they bring you in to come in and provide very specific sets of services or coverage. So that's what I'm playing around with right now. And candidly, I think that's because of more personal pursuit than professional endeavors. And I think specifically, It's amazing to have a really specialized background like I do in partner marketing. I think that's made me very dangerous in my career, but there's a risk to becoming too over-rotated into something. And so the fractional experiences are really good as anchors to make sure that you retract and rebound back into more complete full life cycle marketing. I want to do that just because I think that makes me really, really great as just a marketing contributor overall. And also, you know, I think that it just keeps me sharp around things that are related to marketing and not just partner marketing. Yeah. So are you going to be doing things that you've never done before? It's been a while. Are you little worried about the learning curve? That's a really good question. You know, I'd like to be vulnerable here with you for a second. I'll be honest. Like, I'm doing it. I'm running really quickly. So don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I agree with you. So let's just call it what it is. ⁓ On probably an everyday occasion, Like 50 % of us are out there going, I don't know what I'm doing right now, right? And that's okay. So to answer your question directly, know, absolutely, I don't feel like I've been the sharpest that I could be in all things related to ⁓ digital experiences. For example, ⁓ AI is permeating the ethos, right? And to, you know, put myself out there and to say, absolutely, I'm obviously the sharpest I could ever be related to digital strategies. and engagement is completely a lie. But that's why I'm doing these experiences, right? So that way I can say, hey, go and reintegrate and reintroduce yourself to teams and practitioners who are on top of their game and learn from them while you're contributing to the company for whatever that role is, right? This is the beauty of the experience that I'm trying to embrace right at this moment. ⁓ Yeah. Zero regrets. Yeah, you know, I think I framed the question in such a bad way that like I was... because here's the reality. you know, I worked for a private equity company in the last couple of years and obviously I work with marketers in all sorts of companies and sizes. I've seen so many experts be brought in that are deep domain expertise and around a certain subject and it doesn't work well. You know, so think there's almost something to be said with someone who has domain expertise coming in and doing something a little different actually can provide a really great perspective and hey, maybe we should do things a little bit different as long as you can understand that the nuance and you know work with the business leaders that we're not going so far off base but you're bringing in fresh ideas and different ways to do things and especially getting the partner side you know you might be able to look at things with more nuance and complexity and and that could add a lot of value. I'd like to think so. Like you're saying all the words that are in my head or at least in the talk track that I was telling myself when I was making some of these choices. you know, joking aside, I, you know, feel very passionately about the idea of in with deep domain expertise wherever you can, right? Find your passion in the middle of the thing that you're doing and run with that for sure hands down. However, I think just for my own sense of self as it relates to being a marketer and being the best version of the marketer, I think there's a mindset that I'm embracing right now. I don't know if it's really about mindset or timing or whatever, but I do think that is the experience that I'm tried to take advantage of right now and also reconnect some of my skill sets too as a result of it. you know, it's like I said, it's serving a lot of things. don't know. How are you approaching this? you're, you know, coming in as a frac, what do I call it, fractional Well, let's just call it a VP for right now. know, temporary leader, sure. But, all right, so your V, and this might be good advice for anybody that's coming in this position. Walking in a temporary role leader, you know, You didn't expect to deliver. What's your approach? First couple of weeks you're trying to make a mark, you're trying to just learn everything. How are you approaching this so that you're to be set for success in a short time period? There's actually two lenses that I want to put on it to answer your question. So for the folks who didn't get the benefit of hearing a conversation you and I were having before we recorded, we were talking about your experience of doing this recording. I'm kind of pointing out the microphones. And you had said, hey, when I was doing this with the previous group, I was really like minding my P's and Q's. Everyone was super sharp and tight. And now I'm feeling like my most comfortable and most at ease, right? So my point is, there's something very freeing about walking into a situation which you know is finite. Yeah, interesting. And you're going, hey, no matter what, good, bad, ugly, indifferent, whatever, right? There's only so much time that I have here and there's only so much that I'm going to be able to give. And I don't necessarily know if the charter is for me to come in there and be the absolute best version of the, you know, self that I've ever been. Right. So there's something a little bit freeing about that experience. And I want to just like acknowledge that. That's great insight though. I never, I have never thought of that. And that makes a lot of sense to me. Well, I, know, I don't know if I'm saying that in terms of just imparting wisdom or we're just projecting stuff that I kind of am telling. myself to make my mindset work. It makes sense. You come in, you're only there for a little bit, so you're really focused on prioritizing the right things and doing the right things and not worried about long-term political and jockeying and positioning and all the other stuff we all have to deal with within an organization. You just come in and do the job like it's supposed to be done and then leave. Yes. You're absolutely right. Now that's the one side of the point that I wanted to explain. So the other side of this is... I think this is also an opportunity to introduce myself as the best kind of consultant that I could possibly be. And it's not uncommon for anyone to go into a new role as a full-time employee and put together a pretty solid 30, 60, 90. that's the same kind of operating tool that I'm working with as well, right? My intentions are to go in there, do the kind of X amount of time in initial kind of learning, listening, assessing, right? And then you start to act more, and then finally you put together recommendations, right? That's kind of like the step-by-step pattern. So I'm operating with the same kind of calibration, right? But we'll see if that model actually pans out. I'm quite literally flying the plane while I'm talking to you about it and who's to say in 60 days from now if I'm like, oh I did it on prop. But you know I think that's actually the exact right pattern and one other element to this which I think is really important in the learning and listening. I think when you go into an opportunity where you're you know full-time employee committed there you're going into your learning and listening to think you know how can I make a difference, right? And instead, I think the way that I'm approaching this now is how can I be the best contributor to your vision? And I'm saying that to the person across the table from me. So we'll see how this all blends together, like I said, but my intention is to go about it with like a really solid outlook of building out the typical 30, 60, 90. and just bringing that back in. I love it. Well, best of luck. Thank you. I to keep you posted on how it goes. I'm going to move this over a little bit. I don't know if it's going to make a difference, but I'm also moving a little bit. My wife will let me know if it makes a difference because she's like, I did one video two days ago and she's like, you were half out the video. Did you not look? Oh my gosh. And I actually looked. just like thought it wasn't a big deal, but she's still So now I'm like, I got to just make sure it's not a Oh my gosh. So what do you want to be doing in a couple of years? Is it this consulting? thing full-time? I hate this question but like where do see yourself in a couple years? I don't have a really great answer for you but I will say this I still have pretty big goals for myself related to where my spot is within a company and so much so that I had this idea that I'd love to keep getting closer and closer to the, you know, CRO's office and I'd love to get closer and closer to the board. So I think again making the call back to the beginning, this is why it's really important to, you know, recognize, hey, I'm a badass specialist, right? And I've got this really like special set of skills that I can offer, but am I my most well-rounded version of you know the general kind of like marketing contributor and if I've got those like really big goals in my sight line, I think it is really important to make sure to go back and say okay can I kind of stretch myself in some other places that isn't quite just the domain of the specialist. So I'm not answering your question directly because I don't know the answer but that's really how I'm thinking about that's still what's It's interesting because I see two things happening on your path and I think it's a good takeaway for other people too in that you're rounding out your skill set, right? And I think that's huge in the part that I've seen a lot more sales commercial leaders go into the CRO role. It's funny, I interviewed Richard O'Connor from B2B marketing and he said there should be more marketers going in that role. He's really pushing them and he's the CEO of B2B marketing. He's saying we gotta push marketers to be more commercially focused because we should be seeing more marketers in that role. And so I love that you're doing that. You're rounding out that skill set. But I think also just unintentionally, you're going to be connecting to all these organizations if you do this fractional VP consulting thing. Opportunities are going to pop up. well, we worked with you. We know what you can do. Time for you to come in full time. Yeah. Look, I... I am hopeful that that is the outcome of it. So yeah, I'm operating with that kind of assumption that that could be a benefit out of this experience as well. But coming back to the concept of why marketers probably should be getting on this path, ⁓ I think there's a really big narrative right now around how data driven we should all just be in terms of contributions to the business. But you and I were talking about this in the last conversation that we had, especially in partner. Partner has had this really interesting responsibility in their path around working really hard to define what success means for the business in lots of ways, natural and unnatural. And I'm even thinking about as recently as the conversation that you had this morning on your first Partner Vista webinar, so congrats again. But one of the comments that was made from one of your panelists was talking about how partner marketing in particular, it's really, really difficult to evaluate contributions of success in the traditional marketing funnel. So my point is we spend an extraordinary amount of time and have been probably more so than I think maybe the traditional life cycle marketer. ⁓ figuring out how to define success for the role in a way that's measurable for the business, at least the good ones are. But I also think if you've been doing that game for a little while, you're probably well suited to be of a generation that could usher in something that would get you a lot closer to that CRO's office or chief of staff or some kind of strategist role, because you've been sitting there actually working on this game for a really long time. It's interesting. So think about a lot of the partner marketers I work with today, especially the ones that are a little bit later in their career. They've done field, they've done corporate, they're in partner. I see more and more people now just going straight into partner marketing. I think it's great to have that domain expertise, but they might have to do what you're doing is pull yourself back a little bit and try to get expertise in other areas to really round it out to see the whole organization. Not that I ever thought I was consciously doing this, but I will make one suggestion on that. I think that's right. I love that is the era that's coming in. ⁓ think a way to, like a very accessible way of trying to gain more exposure into the places that will make you maybe a more, you know, kind of exposed, you know, for life cycle marketer, while staying focused on the partner marketing domain, is to actually take advantage of roles and opportunities where companies offer up field and channel or field and partner ⁓ as part of the entire role, right? So ⁓ I know for me, when I've been building out regional marketing teams and partner marketing teams, I almost always introduce roles as regional plus partner. And the reason being is what that ends up doing is the regional side is often considered the more direct extension to corporate marketing. So you have more access to a lot of the ways that that kind traditional marketing funnel runs. And you can get great exposure to that. In the meantime, you're still running the other 50 % of your role, right, which is running out in the field related to partners. There's something about the collision of both of those things and when you can take advantage of it in that kind of hybrid field plus partner role, which is most traditionally offered with ⁓ like regional marketing or field marketing folks, I feel like that's a really great way to just take advantage of seeing both of those, getting exposed to both sides of those coins and making more complete marketer in your path. Is this what you always wanted to do or did you just kind of end up here? don't know if anybody ever wakes up and is like, you know what I should do? I should definitely lead a demand marketing team. I don't ever know if that was in my future vision. Did you want to do marketing? For sure I want to do marketing. So dialing it back to origin stories, right? So I went to school here in the Bay Area, went to school, college, everything out here. Where'd go? I went to San Jose State, no Spartans. Thank you for that. That was really embarrassing. I have friends that are at the San Jose space. But my point is, I'm here in heart of Silicon Valley. I knew that it was likely that I was going to end up coming back into some kind of sales and marketing realm in tech. It's a natural next step. So when I first started applying to stuff coming out of college, you're right. I fell into a marketing role. Specifically, I fell into a channel marketing role. That was not the one that I picked on my vision board by any sense of the matter, right? It wasn't intentional then, ⁓ but it gave me a lot of experiences that helped me start to become more intentional about the type of marketer that I was. And I will also say, I'm very fortunate enough because I've been so close to B2B, to see the hyper value of partners in a way that for whatever reason, like the past 10 years, only now do I feel like companies are really starting to embrace why a partner first modality is so important to their business moving forward. I don't know why it took us so long to get here, but I feel like we're finally here. Now I'm a hundred years old, so what can I say? I felt like it took us a good long while while I was kind of sitting in the trenches and fighting for my peace. And even now, and again, we were talking about this offline, so I'm just recalling what I said. Partner marketing still has a way to go in terms of fighting for their place in the hierarchy of marketers who are well respected for their contributions. Yeah, I agree. think we're going in the right direction. But I think we still have a long way to go. We really do. And it's funny, this partner first approach. So I kind see the other side of this, where I come from the publishing world. The tech targets, IDGs of the world. Not naming those two, but just generally, those companies do not take a partner-first approach. ⁓ There's been many, many times where I'm like, why don't we just go out and partner with this company? It's going to fill our gaps. It's going to serve the customer better. But you're not going to take the full line and the advertising budget. And so it's always been a no. so as I started partnering with Rista, I'm like, why don't we do what we see our customers doing? Build a marketplace. Take a partner-first approach. And so I've just gone out and I've talked to every company, every potential competitor. Because I see our customers doing that. And you hear a co-opetition. What's the other one? The other word I hear all the time is, oh, not friendlies, but frenemies. Yeah. Right? And it's like, look, a lot can be gained by teaming up at the sake of delivering greater value for the customer. And so I think we're almost on the publisher agency side. We need to adopt this approach. We really do. And I think a lot more can be gained. And I'm a big believer in rising tide lifts all boats. 100%. You know, I can't remember who was delivering the narrative, ⁓ but I was just listening to a conversation about just kind of best practices and partner and this idea of partner first and what that really means and who really adopts it. But you said something just right now that really sparked a thought for me, right? Which is, I think it's pretty easy to tell how serious a company is about their customer centric mentality. if they actually embrace the partner first element to it. Because what you just said was we believe in value for our customers, right? And if you're saying, offer up all of these things, great products, know, great people, great experiences with procuring and implementation, but I make it incredibly hard for you to procure through the ways that you want to or work with the entities that you want to for your business, right? Like the company that draws a line or makes it really, really difficult to work with that aspect of it, they are probably still not as customer-centric and customer-first as you want to believe. I'm really hard-pressed to believe that that is the way to look at it and that, you know, or I'm really hard-pressed to believe that's not true these days, right? And I challenge everyone who's going out there and evaluating companies and conversations where they're potentially entertaining a partner-related role. And if they're not hearing partner first in the way the company is talking about their go-to-market, in the first couple of conversations, they are not as serious about customer value. So just for the record, we confirmed this early on. Zero prep for this. Yeah. And I'm sparking great inspiration. I feel like we're doing OK. We're doing OK. No, I love that. It's good for me to hear because I think it the approach we're taking at Partner Vista. We have by no means have this figured out, but I think what's great is as long as we continue to put the customer first, and they're working with us, we will figure it out. I kind of said that at the beginning of the vendor community, from my perspective, on the publisher agency side, it's been very reluctant in the past. That might also just be my siloed view, because I'll admit, Since I've launched partner this time, had a lot of quote unquote competitors reach out saying, hey, maybe we should do a strategic partnership. And so maybe it's just been my side of view and maybe it's a shifting of the times, but I've actually seen a lot of support from my potential competitors in saying, hey, there might be something here. Let's talk about how we can help each other. Well, again, I think that there is something to be said about the value of the concept of what it is that you're introducing. People don't want to play nice in the sandbox with yucky products or yucky ideas. So please don't sell yourself short, you know, as you're talking about what it is that you're introducing with Partner Vista. But it is really like reaffirming though to hear that in the community of partners, this crass way of referring to it, right? But they're eating their own dog food. You know what I mean? Like they're living and abiding by the mantra that, you know, we're all out here carrying forth, right? Which is ecosystem means everything. You can't just do it alone or just on your own kind of like, operating lists, you gotta like kind of leverage the others. I agree, I agree. I want to ask you, shifting gears a little bit, for people that are looking to do what you're doing now in terms of, know, where this is coming from, I've talked to a lot of partner markers over the last two months that have been laid off or quit, and now they're thinking like maybe I'm just going to go out and do a freelance or contract consulting work. What advice do you have for them, whether it's, you know, how to find opportunities or how to present themselves or just how to, you know, Do I even do this? Yeah. Right. So actually, I love this question. And I will say, like, the short answer to your good question is, if you are considering it, do it. ⁓ And the reason that I'm so passionate in that response is, ⁓ I acknowledge very clearly that partner marketing is a niche offering for a lot of companies and nine times out of ten, and I've talked to lot of companies especially over the past 30, 60 days, they have these great visions for partner and somehow partner marketing specifically is still highly undervalued, underdefined, and underpopulated within the company. So my point is, I think that there is a good market opportunity for individuals to go out there and serve as a consultant. It's low risk, right? It's low risk to the companies who are participating in this by saying, hey, I will have a consultant come in. It's not permanent. I can have somebody come in and be super specialized. and offer up these services for me pretty turnkey because it just is screaming at me in almost all of the conversations. in most of the go-to-market and the go-forward, the companies who are firmly partner first. There's really only two streams that they're really thinking about. They're thinking about really clearly partner enablement and partner marketing and partner demand or demand through. But for whatever reason, that marketing seat is just, there's not enough of them in this process. So now the longer answer. Yeah, know. how, what's the best advice and to like go out and find those opportunities? Is it all come down to your network to start? That I wish I had a better answer for I do think that it actually has everything to do with your network right now There are not a lot of companies who are advertising like contract and consulting opportunities for partner even if they're in need for one even if they're in need for one Very specifically one of the companies that you were talking with this morning. I went and had an active conversation with them about 60 days ago and They had three contract opportunities that they were investigating and those were or nowhere on any website, on any job board. There's no way that would have been revealed unless we went and had a conversation. Yeah, well, it's a pretty big company too. It's interesting. So since I've left Foundry IDG, I've just been blown away about how active my network got initiated. I just turned on the day I left. And it was a realization to me that I've been fortunate enough and gotten some great advice that you gotta always nurture and engage with your network constantly and work at building it. And so was there and it's ready. And it's funny, I did this post on LinkedIn where my analogy is like, don't plant an apple tree the day you're hungry. It's gonna take some years to nurture and grow and produce fruit. my network's kind of the same way. I wanted to share that with people because I was living it. now I have all these, It's funny, I got a lot of job offers when I quit and you know was doing this partner visa thing and I didn't announce it right away. But I had all those opportunities there. And to your point, a lot of opportunities that weren't listed. But if I had just quit or been laid off and then all of a sudden tried to build or activate a network, that would not have happened. So a comment and then a question. So my comment is, I love that you're acknowledging this, but I also want to just put it out there. Like the day that you decide that you want to offer up a master class on networking, I fully, like, will receive your one subscription. I tell you this all the time, you don't believe me. You're one of the best networkers that I've ever spoken to before. And ⁓ very specific examples of that would be, you know, you and I have had many conscious touch points in between job conversations and most of it was sparked by you because you have this mentality exactly as you described right which is I'm planting my tree so that way it will bear fruit when I need it. So you're really good at that skill set and yes it's just true but you know my question was going to be more around like in your opinion you've talked to a lot of marketers, not just partner marketers. Our partner marketers, or people on partner teams, I'm curious, are they the better networkers out of all of the marketers? And the reason why I'm, like just so that way you know why I'm leading the witness, their whole MO is they're constantly working across the table with partners who don't sit within the confines of their company, and they have to fight for their attention. That's part of the game. Yeah, so I'm just thinking about your leading answer there that they... they don't just sit within the confines of their company, right? I think that's it. It's kind of obvious when you think about it, but you just look at any trade show you've been to, right? Let's say you work at Elastic, and you're the AWS partner manager, and you're going to reinvent. You're talking to the AWS marketers there, you're talking to probably other partners there. Your job depends on forming those relationships, but I think it even goes beyond that. If you're a partner marketer, If within your own organization, chances are you're having to work with field, having to work with corporate, finance, sales. I don't want to put any marketing wheel down, but if you're a content marketer at these big companies, you're just writing content. You probably work with product teams, and it's not that simple. You know, and there's obviously nuance, but I think you nailed it. To do your job successfully, you have to network. It forces you to. And if you want to do your job really successfully, you have to be intentional. You have to reach out to those partners. You have to set up meetings. Your job is forcing you to do the things that you should do in your personal life. And I think that's where I see a breakdown is, You have numbers to hit, have QBRs, have results to deliver, so you're having to set up meetings, you're having to deliver value to your partners. And I think my personal networking advice just mirrors that. It's nothing novel. Are you being intentional? And are you delivering value? That's it. And a lot of people are doing that in their job, and they're not doing it in their personal life. Well, the piece in there that I'm really hooking onto, which again, it feels like it's basic information, but just people I feel like don't really ⁓ embrace it enough, which is my contribution to my networking exercises are values-based. It's not only value as in what can I take, it's got to also be about what can I give. And he's important, somebody that I introduced you to yesterday via text message. We have these monthly check-ins for no other reason than just to be sounding boards with one another. ⁓ cool. And he remarked as we were getting ready to kind of close down on this particular check-in call. He's like, God, the last three or four calls that we've been on, you've just been offering me introductions and offering me names and giving me this to review, blah, blah. And he's like, I feel like I owe you. And I'm like, listen, man, I need you to know, just in my true mafioso voice, there will be a day where I will come and call in favor. That was a horrible impersonation, but whatever. However, what I am saying is that this conscious contribution and balance between one another is so vitally important to the way that you kind of express yourself. But that also, like once you actually show that you are kind of like a service agent to them, I think that also puts you in a higher favor within their kind of network or their community of people that they want to call upon because they know this person has shown me that they're serving for me and not just like asking of me. It's so true. it's, you know, I'm, I, and this is like something I try to teach my kids. Like we don't give to receive. This is not, you know, don't give for the, you know, my daughter, my daughter, God bless her, she's such a natural giver. She's like my mom. And you know, the other day she gave something and she didn't get a thank you and she was really upset about it. And you know, we had to have a conversation like, look, you're not giving so you're receiving a thank you. Like that's just not what this is about. you know, I think it's the same thing. But with that said, I've noticed the most successful people I've learned from give all the time. you know, not expecting to receive. But as a result, they end up receiving more than the people that give. There's a benefit that's had. There absolutely is. As long as you come from just a good place and you just put it out there, it's going to come back. I agree with you. That's why I'm really stuck on the metaphor of just planting the seed. You're farming it. You're raising it. I'm nurturing and cultivating it. It will eventually bear fruit, but it's going happen. So not to mix analogies here, but the housekeeper's home is always messy, right? Think about it. At work, we have all these apple trees. We have to water, you know, and take care of all day long. It can come really easy to not just take care of your apple tree at home. You know, it's so easy. Like we have all these to-do's, all these deadlines, everyone's busy. And then when it comes time to actually doing that with the one person on that work. We're just so caught up in the day to day that months go by before we talk to people or reconnect with them or check in. And I think that's the real reason. I think people conceptually know this, they understand it, being intentional, adding value, but they're so focused on doing it in the job that they have to do. They're not doing it in their personal network. And then when they need it most, they have done it and it's just not bearing fruit for them. You know, just trust free conversations since just you and me. Nobody's listening or it's not being recorded or whatever. I will say, you know, there's been a very fortunate experience that I've had, you know, out of this transition of exiting from the previous company and kind of walking into the new thing, which is there was a little bit of this extra space for me to do. more reflection and the thing that was really haunting me as I looked at this kind of last four years in earnest, is exactly that point, right, which is I was nurturing, I am, I shouldn't say it in past tense, I'm working through it. I was nurturing a lot of the professional stuff and I was not giving that same amount of force and energy and focus to the personal side of it. And that is part of my personal goal. And also another small reason why I think I'm very happy to take on a next step, which is not so sharply focused as like a full-time employee. I'd like to reclaim a little bit more of that balance. And, you know, I'm not saying that I have done it. I'm not saying that I will be great at doing it, but I'd love to consciously reset on it in this little like step and reset. Yeah, very cool. I love your introductory. I love where you're going. I'm excited for you. Well, listen, man, if you like it, like that's That's the first level is just making sure that when I say the word somebody else is buying it. So thank you for that. I appreciate it. All right. So we've done 40 minutes. Yes. No prep. None at all. How was it? I'm so impressed with us and shout out one more time. I didn't like thread this in very well, but it was a thought I just had a moment ago, which is for all of the things that we just discussed, I am so very excited. about some of the things that you're moving into as you embark into Partner Vista. But more specifically, this is why I am incredibly excited about the concepts of community that I see you are very thoughtfully integrating and kind of building into your stepping blocks of where Partner Vista is going to go. I think that the nature of Networking and community in you is very real and it's centered in all of the right things. The narrative is very important to me, right? But I am just really excited to see this kind of keep going where it's going. And we haven't even seen all of the places it's yet to go. So I'm just really excited for you. Kudos to you. Maybe we should cheers on that. Let's do it. Congratulations again. Awesome stuff. Thank you. There's a lot I want to say to that, I think you said it best. Park it. No, that's it. it and then there. Thank you so much for coming on. ⁓ it's probably a good one. my gosh, thank you. Sorry for the boring walls, but I'm glad you're here. That's great. Thanks, ⁓ you bet. Thanks.