Transcript:

Hey, we're here. Welcome.

Christina Carstensen (00:03.292)

Okay, you. Thanks for having me.

Rick Currier (00:06.892)

Well, so we were just talking about how this is the very first virtual podcast interview I've done. think you're close to, I gotta be close to 50 interviews across my last show and this show, and you're the first virtual, so I'm excited.

Christina Carstensen (00:21.143)

50 is quite a celebration, isn't it, Ricky?

Rick Currier (00:23.182)

And what do we do? We pick what, the hottest day in London in a year or so?

Christina Carstensen (00:28.785)

You certainly have picked the hottest day. Yes, it's well over 100. yeah, trust me, London is not equipped for that. Although it's a beautiful, beautiful day, but very sweltering.

Rick Currier (00:39.198)

So I'm gonna make you sweat on this interview, like quite literally. Well, Christina, obviously I've known you for years, but you know, some of the listeners might be new to you. Do you want to give a little background about who you are and what you're doing?

Christina Carstensen (00:42.953)

Please don't. The hot seat.

Christina Carstensen (00:53.983)

Yeah, sure. Sure. So, yeah, so I have been in, you know, B2B marketing, publishing for my entire career. And obviously, we know each other from the IDG days where, you know, I spent almost 20 years of my career. And, you know, throughout, I have been, I'm aging myself here now, Ricky. So I have actually started as an apprentice in print publishing. But, you know, throughout the whole career, I've always been

almost kind of looking for the next thing or what is interesting, where something may be underserved. So from print, I was approached by someone saying, would you like to, there's this thing called online advertising impressions visits. Do you want to have a little look into that? So I went to that and IDG, I had many different roles, kind of spearheading the mobile advertising. But then 10 years ago, I started off the EMEA.

partner marketing team and that was really one of the areas where there was clearly underserved but a huge growth opportunity. So again, you know, I took my curiosity, looked around in the marketplace and realized that there's definitely a room for, you know, a gap in the market for an agency that also serves that partner marketing community. So a couple of years ago, I launched my own business.

Rick Currier (01:57.848)

Mm-hmm.

Christina Carstensen (02:16.619)

and it's a partner marketing agency. So we're dedicated to partner marketeers and their partners and what was them on all kinds of go-to-market strategies. So yeah, so that's why I'm at the moment. So leading the agency based in London and loving them.

Rick Currier (02:34.742)

and the agency is called, let's see if I can get this right, IEGA or IEJA? IEGA, okay, I got it right the first time. Okay, I've been practicing it. Look, I'm terrible with names, so that's a me problem. IEGA, partner marketing, love it. And this is an agency that's been around for a little while and you've really brought the partner marketing practice to it, bringing just everything you've learned throughout the years working with partner marketers.

Christina Carstensen (02:37.579)

Come on, Ricky.

Aiga!

Yes.

Rick Currier (03:03.148)

working from the publisher side, now putting that with an agency expertise behind it. Is that it?

Christina Carstensen (03:08.895)

Yeah, that is it because, you know, what I also noticed when I was working at IDG running that team was, you know, we had tons of research, a lot of resource for direct marketers.

but there was very little for partner marketeers, whether it's a networking event or, as I said, some research. So when I launched the agency, of the points, I think you highlight that as well as partner Vista is wanted to really also kind of serve the community. So what we also launched was a partner marketing insight series, where we interview partner marketeers on current challenges, what do they see in market so that people get the chance to also learn from each other.

Rick Currier (03:21.868)

Mm-hmm.

Christina Carstensen (03:51.159)

And obviously, you know, for us to also understand the group even better. And yes, and I think for the agency, you know, for the agency landscape, there's obviously big media marketing agencies, but they don't touch partner marketing because, know, there's, think, limited understanding. There's like, partner marketing is over there. So you obviously have a few agencies, but, you know, they focus mostly on

Rick Currier (04:08.974)

Yeah!

Christina Carstensen (04:17.011)

channels or the resellers but not necessarily on strategic alliances. So there was a big need and as you and I know partner marketeers they are the ones who you know to have lack of resources who really need almost like an extension to that team so it's kind of

Rick Currier (04:32.014)

Yeah, no, it's funny you say that, because you and I have both worked with hundreds of partner marketers across thousands of programs, and I can't even count the amount of times on the strategic partner marketing side I've heard from people that just like agencies don't get it. You know, there's too much nuance. You know, I don't think it's overly complicated, but I think agencies in their mind think it's overly complicated and they just...

I don't know if they don't want to understand it or they don't get it, but it's a big disconnect between, I think, the majority of the agencies out there and the help that the partner marketers need. So it's a great opportunity for you to kind of fill that gap. Because I also agree, I think a lot of the agencies that do exist out there are more focused on the channel side of things. What I see is the growth behind a lot of these current day companies are these strategic partnerships that are... We saw...

COVID really, you know, excelled digital transformation. There's kind of this lull coming out of COVID and I've seen a lot of organizations, know, big, large organizations leaning into their partner ecosystem to help with that next evolution of growth and they need help.

Christina Carstensen (05:36.459)

They do need help and I really can see that grows as well. I mean, you and I have been in partner marketing for a long time and really over the years, especially since COVID, there's been a real acceleration in that. And I think there's also an acceleration in that because before...

Many were very focused on events, When it comes to MDF budgets, etc. Everything was kind of focused on face-to-face events. And then all of a sudden, everything had to shift to digital. So there's a real drive in the market as well for that and how to educate partners, right? Because not everyone has got that marketing knowledge. So that's part of our role as well as an agency when we work with, know, large tech vendors and their smaller partners that we help them to understand.

Rick Currier (05:55.597)

Mm-hmm.

Christina Carstensen (06:19.552)

how the marketing works and what to expect from campaigns.

Rick Currier (06:23.406)

So why do you think agencies are struggling to either support strategic partner marketers or even just dive in? Like what challenges have you faced that you think is keeping a lot of agencies away and maybe challenges that you've figured out how solve as an agency completely focused on this?

Christina Carstensen (06:37.591)

Yeah, I think it's, you know, we do speak our own language to a certain extent, I mean, the part of community. So I think that already means sometimes that people feel it's a very complex environment, know, MDF to partner through partner with partner, there's all the different types of partners. So I think that throws a lot of people already off. Sometimes it can be very labor intense.

Rick Currier (06:44.462)

Totally.

Christina Carstensen (07:04.043)

you know, when, you know, there's kind of a high touch with some of these, know, because obviously there's so many moving pieces as well when you have like larger partner networks and you need to understand how to communicate, how to, you know, usher people through the process and, you know, those larger agencies, I think, you know, they are really good, obviously in specific tactics, perhaps.

Rick Currier (07:13.091)

Yeah.

Christina Carstensen (07:29.879)

They're very good in understanding demand generation, how it works for the client, how to run an awareness campaign. But obviously for partner marketing, you kind of really need to lean into the more integrated approach. And also, we like as an agency as well to start with the strategic part at the beginning, how to fit it all together, starting with the joint value proposition, all this work at the front end before even rolling out any campaigns.

Rick Currier (07:48.718)

Mm-hmm.

Rick Currier (07:57.986)

Yeah, know, my guess too is, and I think you hinted on this from the resource side of things, is the scale, right? And so, you one of the reasons why we launched Partner Vista was, you know, what we were seeing in the market was a lot of single advertiser solutions trying to adapt to support, you know, multi-partner type programs or strategic partnerships. You know, certainly we're seeing a lot more of the, you know, what we call the power of three, so three partners coming together. And, you know,

Christina Carstensen (08:21.494)

Yes.

Rick Currier (08:23.79)

Historically, I've been selling and some of our competitors solutions designed for a single advertiser and trying to adapt that to a multi-partner strategy. I think a lot of agencies out there are probably taking their resources, their scale, everything, their strategy designed for a single customer. How do we adapt that to a partner ecosystem strategy? I think what you've done is you've built it from the ground up, like what we've done on our end, with that in mind. Through the nuance and the complexity and

You might be working with one partner on planning, but then another partner is going to book it and do the execution. There's so much, sometimes unknowns, until you actually get into it. You have to have the flexibility and the strategic foresight set up to, I think, succeed on that model. I think that's what you've done from an agency standpoint.

Christina Carstensen (09:12.341)

Yeah, totally. So I think the flexibility is a big part as well, isn't it? So for part of marketing, you have to be flexible for everything, right? Right from the beginning to planning, even the financial setup. yeah.

Rick Currier (09:16.109)

Yeah.

Rick Currier (09:25.976)

Totally, totally. I want to ask you a little bit about the insight series because I think it's unique. It's something we believe a lot in your partner business. That's why we do know never go to market alone. Talking to people talking to people that are doing it hearing about the challenges what's working not working. You're doing that in your insight series. Love to hear a little bit about that and specifically like what challenges are you seeing out there today that that partner marketers are struggling with.

Christina Carstensen (09:34.154)

Yes.

Christina Carstensen (09:47.795)

Yeah, so the Partner Marketing Insights series is on our website. So I don't know whether you can link it on the podcast as well. There's, you know, multiple editions. We also had a live event at the Partnership Leaders London event where we had a Partner Marketing Insights workshop. So it's basically really driving more awareness of all those different topics that we, you know, we take for granted, but really want to understand a little bit more nuances. So but it's not just for someone coming new into partner marketing.

Rick Currier (09:53.186)

Yeah, certainly.

Christina Carstensen (10:17.779)

is also really for the ones doing it, right? To understand, what are my peers doing and how do they solve those challenges? And I, so from an agency standpoint, but also from, you know, hearing obviously all the insights or the predictions as well, you know, there are three main areas in terms of, where I see challenges. So one is content, one is integrated campaigns.

and kind of the sales and marketing integration. Obviously everything is underpinned, Rick, as you know, by pipeline challenge, right? So I need to drive pipeline and attribution challenge in terms of what has partner marketing driven. But those three kind of feed into it, right? And there's loads of more nuances, loads of more insight. I can see the power of three that you mentioned. I can definitely see as well, like...

Rick Currier (10:51.928)

Right.

Christina Carstensen (11:10.711)

People tend to focus more on fewer, higher quality partnerships this year, as opposed to scatter gun approach and see as many partners as possible. They're really trying to get into strategic kind of partnerships. So, but yeah, so if you don't know, do you want to kind of delve into that?

Rick Currier (11:32.278)

No, I was just thinking it was interesting that there are three very distinct, but they're all kind of interconnected too. I mean, one's definitely going to impact the other in that. Let's walk through it real quickly. So from a content standpoint, it's funny. I've been selling content for 20 years. It's always, and I always think about content through the lens of demand. And that's probably not the way to look at it. But the reality is a lot of my customers the last 20 years want leads, they want pipeline.

Christina Carstensen (11:58.967)

on the internet.

Rick Currier (12:01.536)

And the question I always got is like, what's working well today to get good quality leads? And I wish I always had a better answer than white papers, but you know, but that was always from the mindset of quantity. How do I get the most amount of leads, you know, with a single asset? And I think that's changed over the last couple of years in that it's not a quantity game anymore. And I see a lot of marketers backing away from it. But you know, what are you seeing from a content standpoint? Like, what are the key challenges and what are you seeing work well with some of your customers?

Christina Carstensen (12:09.137)

Yeah.

Christina Carstensen (12:30.045)

Yeah, you know what content is really changing, I think, and it's because of the whole bio journey is changing. So what people are now doing is by the time they pick up the phone to a vendor, they have already done self serve themselves through 70 % of the bio journey, right? So if your content is not spot on in that journey, you're going to fall out. So I think it's still really underestimated the power of content, because obviously in our game, content is used to drive demand, right?

So it is the backbone of all the demand generation campaigns. But yet, Ricky, I do get so many times approached by clients. Yep, here's my one asset, mostly white paper. It's fine if it is a thought leadership, high quality, authoritative piece of information, but it's quite often still very much focused on their products, their solutions. Obviously, why would I?

Rick Currier (13:12.998)

Yep.

Christina Carstensen (13:28.383)

as a user, a prospect, leave my registration data for that. So there's still that kind of old school, here's my content and hopefully that will be interesting to them.

You then got that mixed with, I had actually a video yesterday on LinkedIn where I talked about the diminishing attention span of people because I read that actually even TED Talks are now, you they were always 18 minutes, iconic TED Talks. They are now doing a three minute version because even they see that people don't hold attention long enough for that, right? So my LinkedIn post on that was that what we see really working is that you kind of build almost like

Rick Currier (13:49.56)

Mm-hmm.

Christina Carstensen (14:10.231)

content ecosystem. And what I mean was that is that you need to link, let's say you have a white paper, that's your hero asset and it's good quality that still has got a place because you can't explain those really difficult cloud transformation journeys maybe on a two minute video. But what you need to do is you need to link it with, let's say, an animated video or a LinkedIn carousel so that you can draw the audience in.

so that you have the hook to actually get them onto your content journey as such. And then we also say a content ecosystem because you won't just need a white paper, you will need to nurture these people as well. So even if you have generated the leads, what we find quite often is that people then pass a lead onto a partner, but what happens then? So there's actually no setup for that nurture.

If you create a content journey or content ecosystem, then at least you can prohibit that. What we also see is that a lot of video is now obviously consumed. You've got the younger generation, they want video, they want short. So if you have a combination of all the content assets and types, that's definitely something that we're pushing hard with our clients and see great success.

Rick Currier (15:29.814)

Now, is there a way, you know, the way I'm thinking about this is if I'm working on a partner program, probably have a limited budget, limited resources, can't go out there and create 10 pieces of content across the buyer's journey. My first thought is, create one hero asset and then create deliverables off of it. Is that kind of what you're seeing as the cost-effective way? And what does that look like from your perspective?

Christina Carstensen (15:52.823)

Yeah, absolutely. That's what we do, right? You've got one here, let's say it's an e-book or a white paper and then you go into, let's have a LinkedIn carousel, let's have a short, literally like 30 second animated video, do a blog post out of that, you know, white paper because again, you know, people just want to consume it in different formats, perhaps. So it's about repurposing, you know, not everything needs to be new from scratch. So it can be also the repurposing for sure.

Rick Currier (16:19.842)

Okay, and now, so that's obviously the place to start, but then, you know, putting that in an integrated program that's gonna drive pipeline is kind of the next challenge. Two challenges, one challenge, and two challenges, and one, whichever way you wanna look at it. Talk me a little about what you're seeing there and kind of what's working to address that challenge. Challenge is.

Christina Carstensen (16:30.665)

Yeah.

Christina Carstensen (16:36.681)

Yeah, yes challenges. So first of all, I think one other point I wanted to make was, you know, it's obviously also this is great for like big strategic clients, right? They have maybe the budgets for creating truly joined collateral for, you know, for their partnership. But obviously, you also got partnerships where you have multitude of partners and you don't just want to give them an asset and then

you can put your logo on it and we are all done because partners do not want that and they don't work either. you know, we find other ways there. So either you, you know, you have your main paper that speaks to maybe your vendor, you know.

kind of set up, but then, you know, we kind of do a spotlight for the partners in there. So again, you know, you can have more cost effective solutions, but just to do the creation and put the logo of the partner on, wouldn't recommend. And that is, yeah, and that also leads to the, you know, the integrated campaigns. And I'm sure that you see that as well on partner Vista side that quite often it is still a quarterly set up, right? People do get their MDF or their funds on a quarterly.

Rick Currier (17:34.552)

All right, got it.

Christina Carstensen (17:49.207)

cycle and they have to show results on that and that often ends up in this kind of I do a quick content indication here and I do this there and it's like tactical kind of You know, yeah tactics that they are

just deploying, there is no one step back. Let's look at the strategy and we're just working with a client. It's a complete joy because they actually do it completely as an integrated program, right? So they wanted to break into a new vertical and they are revamping the whole marketplace with all their partners, but in line with that wanted to create content that really takes prospects through the journey. So they have some of their standalone assets that speak to their brand.

but then also always had in mind, right, how can we create content that also then lets partners join us? And, you know, if we do that webinar, what will be the next step after the webinar for such a prospect, right, who came and viewed the webinar? Should they then be invited to that event? Should they then get that white paper? So really connecting the dots and obviously, yeah, we started from scratch with that client and all the way through and the results are brilliant because obviously...

people can see that this is a connected story and we all know as well from research that people need like minimum five, eight touch points to actually even recognize or engage with a brand, right? So your one touch point is not gonna...

Rick Currier (19:18.2)

So what's your advice to someone who might be, they might find themselves today just doing this kind of standalone approach. I'm just gonna develop a white paper and get leads. They wanna see more results, they wanna see more pipeline. How should they be approaching, like from your mindset, give them the secret to how this is how I needed to think about this and approach it differently to see better results. How should they think about that?

Christina Carstensen (19:41.857)

think about that. Yeah, because it's not always possible to, you know, change certain elements, right? You get the quarterly funding. That's how it is.

Rick Currier (19:49.258)

Yeah, that's always been the biggest problem from my perspective is just the timing on it, right?

Christina Carstensen (19:52.829)

Yeah, and then the sales cycles are so long, right? It doesn't really fit at all in a sense, right? So I think there's different ways and people realizing how to work that because sometimes we work with our clients as well, where we do like these turnkey programs. So that is literally off the shelf every quarter. But what we always say to them is, right, look at them as a quarterly execution, but see how you can connect them. So if you see in Q1, if you do

Rick Currier (19:55.438)

Yeah.

Rick Currier (20:10.35)

Mm-hmm.

Rick Currier (20:17.634)

Hmm.

Christina Carstensen (20:20.255)

an event, then create in Q2 the white paper from the event and use it for demand gen and then invite webinars.

Rick Currier (20:28.176)

I like that. Yeah. So, so, you know, you're still planning quarterly, you're still activating within that 90 day MDF cycle, but you're thinking about it from a yearly perspective. And so these isolated activations are actually supporting each other and complimentary. That's interesting.

Christina Carstensen (20:37.579)

long term.

Christina Carstensen (20:42.271)

Yeah, so I think that's one. And the other one is, you know, have like a documented strategy. It sounds so basic, doesn't it? I think I heard that again on the, you know, when we hosted that workshop and a panel, people were saying, you know, the basics are really still what makes all the difference, right? And what you have in those, you know, what we call documented strategies is almost what you have, you know, you can have that with a partner. So where you obviously

Rick Currier (20:49.688)

Yeah.

Christina Carstensen (21:09.341)

really drill down on what's our common objective, what's the ICP, but also what are our go-to-market and what's your responsibility and what's mine because people telling stories of one getting all the registrants for the webinar, but then it hasn't been cleared up how to follow up, so the other one was following all the leads up. So clear guidelines and a clear strategy that you can always come back to as well with your partner and see how it's working.

Rick Currier (21:31.566)

Yeah.

Rick Currier (21:39.406)

No, I agree. I think, you know, this is an area where I think Gen.ai can really help too, because, you know, I was talking to a partner marketer the other day who, you know, they recorded all their meetings with their partners, right? So they had all the transcripts. They basically fed that into their, you know, quote unquote, compliant, you know, chat GPT version. And they basically gave it the framework to create a documented strategy. And what they were really focused on was a 90, 120, 360 day plan.

Christina Carstensen (21:39.489)

that's

Rick Currier (22:08.906)

as far as his document strategy. And it did most of the work, you know, and he still had to go in there and change things and edit it. But I mean, it took hours off his plate in terms of creating a document and strategy based on the conversations and, you know, the action items and the goals from the meetings with the partnership that were just, you know, from recorded transcripts. You know, I think that's, think we just got to get a little bit more creative because a lot of these partner marketers are just, they're resource strapped. They don't have times. They're wearing so many hats, but now some of the tools out there can really help at least give you a head start.

Christina Carstensen (22:39.039)

Yeah, absolutely. It's such a good point because there's so much at the moment that is being developed as well. Right. So I love that example. I'm going to nick that, I I can also see it in like, know, when I said originally that we have like this, obviously the sales marketing disconnect, there's nothing new, right. And that's not specific to partner marketing. You can see that in marketing as well. But what we have seen is really was AI again, you know, new AI tools that really help a little bit to

Rick Currier (22:47.265)

Yeah

Rick Currier (23:00.77)

Yeah.

Christina Carstensen (23:08.183)

to kind of foster better collaboration between marketing and sales. So for example, when demand generation campaigns are run now, that the demand generation supplier, offer now an AI enabled follow up tools for sales. So meaning there's a real personalized follow up.

that is recommended and suggested and comes directly with the lead, where you can see, for example, right, they have engaged with this content, this was their journey, and this is how you should be following up, giving them the script, giving them the nurture flow as well. So nothing needs to actually be thought up yourself. You've got the whole journey there. You can see what has been done because I think in partner marketing quite often what happens, is that...

You know, if they don't have a dedicated SDR on the partner side, if they are tasked with the follow-up, then the direct SDRs do obviously companies first. And then when they come to the partner leads, they're like, where has this lead been generated? What has been the journey? So I think there's a lot of AI innovation that is used around that piece to give more information to sales. And obviously you guys at Partner Vista are doing that as well as those, you know, conversations.

Rick Currier (24:07.618)

Yeah.

Rick Currier (24:24.994)

Yeah, yeah, I think you're spot on. Yeah, I think it's, know, we've lived in the world of Bant for so long. And, you know, to me, Bant's always just been binary. It's, you know, are you a budget maker? Yes or no. Okay. Are you in market? Yes or no. Right. And it's like, okay, that's somewhat useful in making sure that we're narrowing in on the target. It doesn't really help me as a seller. Right. And so now, what you just talked about, now we're getting some real useful information as a seller to understand what's going on.

Christina Carstensen (24:27.159)

Right?

Rick Currier (24:55.014)

understanding the landscape, how I might be able to position this and kind of where we've gone in Partner Vista is I think one step further in that it's not enough to just understand, but what do I do with this information? And that's where I really love AI, how I try to use it is understanding is a key component, but it's a recommended next step. And that's where we've tried to lean into is, all right, I'm a busy sales rep, I got all these leads coming over, here's the lead.

I can spend hours looking through all this AI analysis, but can I get an actual recommendation on what I do with this information? And that's really what we've leaned into. And I think a lot of organizations are adopting that. to your point, if you're on a partnership and you're throwing leads over to the fence, to a sales team, and you might have little control over what that sales team does, you really got to lean into, are we giving them the tools, the information that they need along with this lead to be successful?

Christina Carstensen (25:48.651)

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that really bridges some of the challenges and or alleviate some of the challenges that they have. I mean, another point that was made in the workshop was, of course, that's like the golden standard. If you can, that you start with sales rights, the whole journey, your documented strategy, everything you had sales in the room in order to say, look, you know, this is what we're planning to do. What do you think about the target accounts, etc.? But

That's, you know, as I said, that's a golden standard and not when you have a vast ecosystem that's obviously not achievable for every single partner to have, you know, sales buy in right from the start. So therefore these new tools and this kind of, know, this is what you can do and this is how you should be following up.

Rick Currier (26:24.514)

Yeah.

Christina Carstensen (26:34.685)

And yeah, as you said, everything is interconnected, right? If you haven't got the right content right at the beginning or the content for giving them for the nurture, this falls apart very quickly. And I think people are not focused necessarily on that.

Rick Currier (26:50.466)

You mentioned workshops. Is this something you're doing for existing customers? Is this part of an introductory phase? Tell me a about the workshops and maybe how people are working with you. Do they just sign up? I love to hear the commercial side of things. If people are listening to this and they're like, well, I want to work with Christina. What does that look like?

Christina Carstensen (27:11.095)

It actually can look depending on what your needs are, right? So we work in very different ways with our clients, but just to touch on those workshops. So what we found is actually when talking to clients that...

there was not always a content strategy in place and there's not always a wider strategy for the business for, you know, whereas the go-to-market. So what we are offering is actually to do a content strategy workshop and what that entails is it's us obviously from the Aiga side, but it's also our content editorial team.

who will join those workshops. And then what we really delve into is, what do we see in the markets, especially around competitors, let's say for this client, what are they saying? What is your audience saying in terms of audience insights? How should you tailor your content? So it's very specific, our editors are obviously working on that part. Then we look into research, biojourney, a bit of educational background for the client.

And then the outcomes of those workshops are very specific content strategies, either for a specific program or beyond as well. And they work really well as a starting point for those larger integrated programs. because you would also be surprised that even larger clients, they obviously have all their content for each of their brands in place, but it's not always that they have the joint.

value proposition, that's obviously the main starting point and then how to draw from there.

Rick Currier (28:49.698)

Yeah. Now I love it. I've done a couple of those. mean, I remember I did a big one at Microsoft years ago. This is pre pandemic and you know, really smart people, lot of resources, but you know, from my perspective, you know, I'm going to toot our own horn, but we, we saw major progress because I think it was just having that outside perspective. Also just a different layer of expertise come in. I think it really accelerated the brainstorming process because we brought a couple of new ideas into the mix and then that got them spinning in the different directions and

I've seen them work tremendously well and not that people can't be doing workshops internally on their own, but I think sometimes you just need that little bit of fresh perspective to come into the mix and kind of help guide the discussion, maybe bringing in some insights or research. You can see tremendous results with that format. it's great you're doing those.

Christina Carstensen (29:36.159)

Yeah. And you know what is the other point on those is they are really busy partner marketeers. So sometimes an external person who is running this workshop and gets everyone in the room, that's already a win, if you know what I mean. So just everyone's minds are focused. So yeah, so that's what we do in the content workshops, but yeah, we work with our clients and obviously all go to market tactics, right? Whether that's margin, content creation.

Rick Currier (29:46.764)

Yeah.

Christina Carstensen (30:02.441)

social events and sometimes it's turnkey programs and sometimes it's more on strategic integrated programs.

Rick Currier (30:10.446)

Cool, I wanna get into kinda key takeaways, but before that, how much you lovin' this? I mean, you were in the corporate world, like both of us, and now you're kinda running your own business, like both of us, I mean, you lovin' it? I mean, I know it's a lot of hard work, I mean, I'm experiencing it, but tell me, mean, what's been the greatest thing for you?

Christina Carstensen (30:29.047)

Honestly, I'm really loving it. So it is hard work. And especially, think, you know, at the beginning, it's very, very different, right, especially when you come out of years and years of corporate life. So it's a real adjustment to wear all the hats of, you know, marketing, sales, finance, etc. Right at the beginning. But you know what, you can really shape it to, know, what you always wanted to do, you know, sometimes in

corporate life, obviously there are restrictions of, you you come with ideas, but then they can't go to fruition because it just doesn't fit into this strategy. So I'm loving it because it means that all the things I was considering and thinking about for especially partner marketeers, et cetera, that you can just bring them to life. You know, like the partner marketing insight series now thinking, could we do live events out of that? You Yeah. And just, you know, you can always

Rick Currier (31:15.918)

Yeah.

Christina Carstensen (31:25.153)

keep your finger on the pulse and create new, fast forward new ideas as well. What about you, Mickey? Because you're just starting on that journey.

Rick Currier (31:31.182)

Totally, totally. Yeah, you know, I think I've always naturally been a builder. mean, the last 15 years at IDG Foundry, I've always found myself on small teams and growing those into big teams. so, you know, so for me, like culture has been really, really big. You know, that could be tough in a corporate world, especially when there's acquisitions and things go different directions and you kind of lose control of the culture. So for me, it's A, building a culture internally.

Christina Carstensen (31:44.566)

Yeah.

Rick Currier (32:00.046)

and just having direct influence on what this becomes. And then obviously there's the product and building that, but for me it's the community side of things, which is why I'm like, we're very just getting pilots out the door and that's really important. We need money to come in. I have a mortgage and three kids. I gotta pay the bills, but it's really the community side of things. And that's why we're doing the podcast. We have our first meetup coming up in Denver. We're gonna be launching a community.

You know, and so that's super cool. I just absolutely love that. I love the fact that we're building something with partner marketers like you've done yourself and just, you know, we have a vision on where this is going. don't, you know, we're focused on something today, but this is going to change over time as I'm working with partner marketers and figuring out, you know, what are the best, you know, AI tech solutions out there to solve some of these challenges and how do we incorporate that in a tech stack that, you know,

fits the nuance of partner marketing because again, we're going back to 90 day MDF cycles. You a of these partnerships can't do a year long platform cost. They can't do tech integrations. You know, there all these things that the corporate field side can do. There's limitations on the partner side. And so we're figuring out how to kind of take that on, on our business model so that partnerships can come in, take advantage of all these great tools and then leave because the MDF cycle is over. And just building that with the community has been fun. But to your point, it's...

You know, last night I was wearing my finance and web development hat and that wasn't as fun, you know? So...

Christina Carstensen (33:30.902)

The non fun parts, they are also the real fun parts. Agility, think is the word, isn't it? And for partner marketing, you really need to be agile, right? But I it's very special community, and I'm not just saying that for the sake of it, but I do always...

Rick Currier (33:34.379)

Yeah, yeah.

Rick Currier (33:38.507)

It is.

Rick Currier (33:41.934)

Yeah, and think you said it earlier, flexible, right? We gotta be flexible with our customers.

Christina Carstensen (33:57.375)

Obviously we work in this space for long time. But yeah, they're just such open and collaborative folk because obviously that's their job, right? It demands that you need to work with so many different partners. But yeah, I just love working in this space. I think it's fun.

Rick Currier (34:08.003)

Yeah.

Rick Currier (34:14.594)

I do too. I do too. Well, obviously you're helping a lot of people. I know we've covered a couple key takeaways, but I want to give you the opportunity if there's any more we didn't cover. think people are always looking for kind of actionable things to take out of this. Like I should do this today or should do this tomorrow. Yeah. If you got any, any other great ones you want to share before we, before we wrap up.

Christina Carstensen (34:27.829)

not to do stuff.

Christina Carstensen (34:33.463)

I think we did kind of cover the mains, right? I think if I had to take away, would definitely say, you know, look at your content, do content ecosystems that we talk about, right? Not just, you know, sit on your laurels for the content that you have. Do think about an integrated campaign approach. And again, you know, if you don't have deep pockets that you can still make it work with, you know, with a kind of longer strategy behind the scenes, but still do it on a quarterly basis.

Rick Currier (34:36.876)

We did.

Christina Carstensen (35:02.295)

If you haven't got a documented strategy today, do one, build one. And I know that AI is really overused, right? Everyone is like, should be using AI, what should I be doing? Everyone is doing chat-shippy-tea but doesn't really know how else. But I think, yeah, just be open to what agencies or suppliers are bringing to the table because there's such a quick change. And working with the likes of Partner Vista or EGLE will kind of give you as well some extra...

Rick Currier (35:05.688)

Yeah.

Christina Carstensen (35:32.439)

information around those, right? So you should definitely think of how to use those new tools to make your life easier really and solve some of those challenges, whether it's sales or marketing or those documented strategies that you set that can be built by the tool, right?

Rick Currier (35:52.62)

Yeah, no, I think that's great. I mean, I think it's easy to get caught up in the, don't have resources, I don't have time. It's a quarterly challenge. But I think the way you just laid it out is, you know, there's some cost effects, cost effective, actionable approaches you can take, starting with a document strategy, looking at your content. You might be planning quarterly. Think about that yearly, bring in sales early. Like there's a lot of things you can still be doing that don't necessarily cost a lot of money or take a lot more time. And certainly bring in Christina for a workshop because it sounds like that's a

Christina Carstensen (36:21.227)

Thank you.

Rick Currier (36:21.624)

That's a real helper too. So obviously I'm going to link in the show notes, but you know, if people are listening, where should they go for more information?

Christina Carstensen (36:28.289)

So they can go to aegomarketing.com or obviously find me on LinkedIn. you will be able to find my profile there and connect on that.

Rick Currier (36:36.14)

And that's, that's A-E or, why don't you spell that real quick just for people. Okay, perfect. Awesome. Well, Christina, thank you so much. This has been fun. I, you know, when, when we're off to the races, I'm going to fly over to London and we'll do another one of these in person. And hopefully it won't be so hot out there because I need AC. I'm in Colorado and it's, it's also a hundred degrees here today, but I have AC so I'm not complaining.

Christina Carstensen (36:40.167)

A G A.

Christina Carstensen (36:46.103)

You're okay.

Christina Carstensen (36:58.903)

I'm jealous. But there you go. Yes, then we can do it over a nice drink, over a nice coffee. Thanks for having me. Bye.

Rick Currier (37:06.376)

Awesome. Love it. Well, thanks so much, Christine. I appreciate it. Bye.