Transcript:

Welcome to the show. It's good to be here, Ricky. There's there's so much I want to talk about today in terms of just. You know the challenges you're seeing in the industry, partner marketing AI, but congratulations man, you just joined partner Vista President. Yeah, I'm super excited to. To finally make it on board. I know that we've been talking for a little while.

⁓ you know, I was also, you know, transitioning with my own consulting company. So yeah, lots of things happening right now. Lots of irons in the fire, but the focus is, couldn't be any more, pointed and then just ready to go ready to rock and roll right now. feel like we should be celebrating with, with champagne, but instead you made us mud water. Yes, I did. Never, never. I don't think I've ever had mud water. So explain, explain what it is. It said mushroom. It's a, it's a mushroom coffee.

It's got lots of different. I think it's five different mushroom types also has Chai I could taste it also has the ⁓ tamaric Different different herbs ⁓ also some cocoa nib in there so you're in sales I feel like you should be drinking coffee So why the mushrooms, you know coffee is a little bit too much for me even on the decaf and this gives me everything that I need from from a from a jolt if you will so too much from like a caffeine standpoint or like

the acid in the stomach? A little bit of both. Yeah. Okay. I have a very sensitive stomach. But when we're on the road, you'll still get a coffee though, right? Yeah. Yeah. I still do decaf every once in a while, but like from my, it's from a home brew perspective. Yeah. Mud water is my go-to. It's pretty good. You know, and who, uh, someone that put me on to mud water was our, our, good friend, um, Walter, um, uh, Mastroppa from, the Hap group back in the day. Wow.

I had no idea. been drinking this for a while. For a while. It is definitely my home brew. Well, cheers, man. Welcome. Welcome to partner Vista. Thank you. You know, we're very excited to have you. think, you know, everything, and this is even like talking today about community, everything that you align with in terms of values, community, you know, your stance on technology, but also not leaving, excuse me, losing that human connection.

lines with everything that who you are and what partner Vista is. So I think it's just like a natural marriage in terms of, God, we've only been doing this 90 days and there's the whole, whole life ahead of us. And you're going to be part of that and helping lead in that charge. Absolutely. No, I'm very excited to build this out. mean, it's, it's just the, you know, the last 30 days have been amazing. You know, it's just, it's been a great, um, a great, uh, entry for me into, into the, into the venture.

and I think it's only going to get better. I the conversations that we're having, the community that we're building, it's pretty exciting. It's pretty exciting. I think a lot of people out in the community love that the band's getting back together. So let's take a step back. Why don't you tell people a little bit about like who you are and what's your journey been like to get here? Yeah, you know, I've been in advertising media, both on the B2C side and the B2B side.

⁓ age myself here, but over 25 years. ⁓ Most of it was in consumer side. I did a lot on the local business. cut my teeth on local ⁓ weekly newspapers. That was the boiler room where I was doing a lot of cold calls. ⁓ know, every day a hunt like for an hour making 100 calls within an hour timeframe and just go, go, go, go, you know, but that was

That was huge. mean, that's where I, know, the foundation of my, my mantra that I stand on today that I, that I mentor reps on that I coach reps on is plan your work, work your plan. I mean, that's, that's where it all started. That's where it all happened. And that is my baseline. That's my foundation. ⁓ and then 10 years ago, when I came over to IDG, when you hired me, ⁓ you know, over to the tech net. ⁓ so this, this venture this whole time, I've just been.

taking things on, learning along the way, growing, getting new skill sets and meeting a lot of cool people. And speaking of cool people, it's just partner marketers, man. Partner marketers, they've caught a place in my heart. They're the jack of all trades and they're the master of a lot. What about partner marketers has you so connected with them, like on a personal level? Like, what is it about what they're doing that just stands out?

to you? Well, think from from a salesperson, we're just I think we're very much aligned, right? I think and especially in my early days, we didn't always have account managers, we didn't have the coordinators, we were doing a lot of our business, our our territory was our territory, there wasn't any assistance that were helping us out, there wasn't anyone so I was doing everything, filing, going, getting contracts going, you know, waiting at the fax machine.

you know, in the print days, you know, there, there wasn't a lot of assistance happening. So you had to be a jack of all trades. also, you were, especially my day in print, you were kind of creating and building the ads with your, with your design team. You're there. move the logo just a little more left. that's perfect there. I can't wait to show this to the customer. You go run, get in your car, drive over there, boom, show them. like, that looks great. Thanks so much. And that was, that, was the joy.

of like seeing the joy on the customer's face, right? And just understanding that you're making an impact in the community. At least that's what it was for me. And then now at kind of a enterprise ⁓ stage, it's just making the, the marketers happy and building those relationships. So again, it just, the, the alignment between a salesperson and a partner marketer wearing multiple hats because you have to, to get your job done.

Yeah. Now, obviously you had a very comfortable corporate job working with IDG Foundry. Why leave that? Comfortable. Sure. I mean. When I say comfortable, like we had benefits, we had a regular paycheck, you had PTO. There's someone to help you with finance and lawyers. Yes. But you left it all behind. The Lord's Row, please. But we both left it all behind and somebody asked me recently, I'm going to ask you the same question.

you know, it was a relatively high paying, comfortable job. Like why leave that all behind and take a big risk? And I know you, you left till, ⁓ launch 73 media and now you're taking a big risk with partner Vista. You know, it's brand new startup. You know, we're just getting our first pilots under the way. Like why, what's your why behind all that? Yeah. My why is if I'm going to make a bet on anyone, it's on me, you know, and I I'll bet on myself all day long and

with that kind of focus and attitude, quite frankly, you know, the why is for my family, for my future. You know, my kids are in their teens, ⁓ know, rising juniors, rising seniors. I want to be able to show them that you can take another step. You know, you don't have to stop at corporate America. You can take another step and kind of create your own paths. ⁓ You know, I have no doubt that I, we will be successful in whatever we do.

Um, so, so yeah, so, you know, my, my why is that it was, it was time, you know, this was something back, I'd say in 20, probably in the, in the early 20 teens, if you will, this was a thought that was going through my mind. It's like, I w know, I'd been in media for so long, especially on, on the, consumer side. was like, I want to jump out on my own. I want to do something on my own. And then B2B came in my life and I was like, okay, here's something new.

I can learn so that that kept me in for probably longer than I needed to be in. Yeah. ⁓ but I, I, gained so much knowledge on the B2B side. So now I feel like I'm well rounded from a sales executive sales leadership perspective that I can, and that was another that I felt comfortable and I felt confident. Yeah. It's funny you say, you know, you want to show your kids that you can walk your own path. Cause for me it was

somebody gave me some advice. think I read it or heard it somewhere. wasn't personal advice, but you know, they, they said, you know, do you find yourself being a cog in someone else's machine? Right. And that like, for me, that like just hit my core. And I was like, yeah, that's exactly how I feel. You know, cause I've always wanted to go out and do my own thing. And I'm like, I am a cog in someone else's operating system. And I don't, don't want to do that anymore. I to create my own operating system. And not that it's a bad thing. Not at all. There's a great learnings. There was great people, you know, I,

lots of great relationships that we've built over the years, both internally and externally. But I think we both come from the same cloth of just, this was inevitable. Yeah. Yeah. And honestly, I don't think we could do what we're doing today without the path we've taken. You know, that agreed. mean, we've worked at some of the most storied companies and B2B tech, know, IDG foundry, you know, long standing traditions that some of the most trusted brands in the space.

allowed us to build a network of, you know, an experience across hundreds of buyers to see what's working, not working, you know, and, and now we're utilizing that just, you know, domain expertise and the relationships we've built to help solve some really challenging problems out there, you know, as it comes to funnel. So I want to ask you, like, what are some of the challenges that you're currently seeing out there with, partner marketers? Look, I think the biggest one, and this is you from

the large hyperscalers to GSIs to ISVs to startups, no matter where you are in the stage, I think the biggest hurdle, the biggest struggle is with conversion. I don't, well, I do know that it comes down to not having enough nurture with the leads. ⁓ The mechanisms that they have on the brand corporate side are not necessarily.

they're not necessarily available on the partner marketing side of the business because of the duality or the, the, the multitude of partners, the, the ecosystem, they, they don't have it set up to speak to the better together or ecosystem story. You know, when a lead goes over to a BDR at enterprise company X that BDR is speaking to company X not to company X and Y.

joint solution for the market. It's well, I only know my, my script is for, for this, not for both of you. No, it's funny to say that I was talking to a marketer last night and she works at a very multi-billion dollar technology company. And I know for a fact on the corporate field side, when they generate leads, they go into a very sophisticated marketing automation system.

You know, the leads are going to get nurtured. They're going to get qualified, scored. All these, all these things are going to happen before it ever gets to an SDR. Meanwhile, on the partner marketing side, you know, she's going to generate leads and they're going straight to an SDR team because it's, it's for a very particular partnership and they don't have the luxury of all the institutional process and tools to help nurture, qualify and engage these leads. Absolutely. And I think that's one of the problems we're trying to solve with partner Vista. And I think one of the added challenges is that same marketer

you know, she can't go out and sign a year long platform subscription to support that one particular program, right? She can't build a tech integration to support that one particular program. Right. And so I think that's where we've seen an opportunity like, look, we can go out there, partner with some of the best AI tools, you know, develop our own tech integration. And then people like her can utilize MDF in a 90 day cycle, dip in, run through our marketing funnel, generate really high qualified leads that have been engaged, have been qualified.

Now they're ready to talk to an SDR. Absolutely. And you know, I think that's, you know, that's mission critical for, for us. And I think that's what we're striving and aiming for is to really get leads as close to close as possible. I know you had my buddy Sean on and he said something very similar to that, where that's where he sees AI from a sales marketing perspective is that AI is going to help us get leads closer to close. And I fully agree with them.

Yeah, it was great. said, yeah, I thought it was a great conversation because he was talking about how leads are going to stay within marketing longer. Right. Again, they're not just going to get flipped over to the sales team and the marketing is wondering, like, what are they doing with the leads? Are they even calling on the leads? It's really going to stay in this funnel a lot longer. And by the time it gets over to sales, to your point, they're ready to close. So how excited are you are? Are you with AI? Where do you think there's some hype? Where is this the real deal? It's going to support sales like.

Give me a hundred, 10,000 foot view of AI. Yeah, look, there's a lot of hype and there should be. We're in exciting times right now. I mean, this is kind of the ⁓ 2000, the early 2000 moment. is like, this is like pre iPhone stepping into iPhone where it's just all of our minds got blown, right? It was like, my God, we have a computer in our hands. We've got one some of the best, a camera, a computer, everything that we need all in our hands.

We're with AI, we've got everything that we need that we get to create, right? With the agents that we can do to kind of help us along. It's our virtual, it's our artificial assistant, right? So we get to kind of have our own assistance with whatever task we need done, whatever we want done to free ourselves to be more creative, have more interactions.

with people, because I mean, on a day to day, we can get bogged down. We can get bogged down with a lot of administrative work that we don't necessarily have to do. I mean, we have to do it, but it needs to get done. But we don't have to do it ourselves. We can have AI do that for us. Now, where are you seeing it come into application specific to partner marketers? And this could be things you've seen out in the market or things we're doing here at Partner Vista. How is it actually helping?

Get leads closer to close, helping support sales. Like what are some actual takeaways for people? Yeah, look, I think there's a lot of great technologies out there we're utilizing here at ⁓ Partner Vista. I think the AI interview is one of the, you know, our partner, Peel. ⁓ I think that technology and the more that they continue to iterate, the better their product is becoming. But I think it's those kinds of applications that

can have a five to seven minute interview that can get more details, that can get more out of ⁓ a customer's prospect. Just so when that data does go over to the BDR, to the SDR, they're that much closer to the decision maker. They're that much closer to the projects that are happening. They're that much closer to the roadmap discussions that are happening at the company that is their prospect, right?

So they have an understanding, they have a much better understanding of what the need is and how their product aligns to that needs and how they can solve for them. Yeah, what I love about the AI interview, know, it's, from my view, a lot of Legion programs out there are just throwing information at marketers and sales, right? And the information could be really robust and, you know, thought provoking, but it really takes, again, some thought to figure out what do I do with this information? Sure.

And I think the AI interviews kind of flipped that on its head and instead of saying, here's a lot of information, good luck, it's saying, here's information that we think is helpful, but here's our recommendation on what to do with this information. And this is where I'm really excited with AI, is just the recommended next step. that's what was missing, I believe, not just with where we were, I think with a lot of companies, a lot of our competitors out there is that we had, you know, we had these bank programs.

where you have the budget authority need and timing questions, but there was never that next step of, okay, great. Now when we deliver this to the customer, hey, here's our recommendation on what you should do. Cause again, a lot of people looked at us as the expert as a whole, not just me and you individually, but as the company as a whole, they would look to us as the experts. We have this background, we have this editorial background. So when we're kind of sending the leads back over to them,

there's an expectation that, well, can you give us some recommendations on how we follow up with this? And that was just always not there. That wasn't part of the workflow. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's a shortcoming for sales. And I know where we're developing these, what we call BDR playbooks, again, to really just support sales. Cause I think there's still that disconnect, you know, and some more marketing organizations have gotten better in terms of, connecting with sales, but at least from the publisher standpoint, in terms of putting together programs,

there's still a disconnect in the programs we're developing and how that actually supports sales and the execution. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, and like I said, to my, to my point earlier, I mean, that's one of the hurdles. That's one of the challenges out there that there's just not enough nurture and there's not that good connection, the alignment between marketing and sales. Let me ask you this. I know there's a lot of complexity and nuance and partner marketing.

You know, some organizations have seemed to figure out ways to adapt these single advertiser solutions to meet the needs of partner ecosystems. But why do you think so many companies struggle to, from our point of view, really support the partner marketer? They just don't understand it. I, know, I think we've, we've luckily fell into a position where we got to intimately connect with partner marketers and truly understand their pain points. ⁓

So I just don't think that there's a connection there. I think, you know, it's kind of like you could the analogy of, know, these American automobile makers trying to move over to electric. Yeah. They had to sacrifice some revenue in order to make that move. So how much revenue do you sacrifice when you're not sure if it's going to replace the revenue that's going to be there? So I think it's in the same vein that I think a lot of publishers out there that haven't fully committed.

to supporting the partner ecosystem for their customers. They're just trying to balance that revenue. Like I can't give up that much revenue and it's it's a challenge. Yeah. And I know a lot of organizations take these single advertiser solutions and they try to adapt them to fit the needs of maybe you're working with one partner, three partners, 10 partners, right? And I think there's a lot of challenges there. And I know since I left IDG Foundry, a lot of other media companies have reached out to me.

I'm sure you too, to see if I'd want to come on board to be their partner guy. You know, and I think, I think that's one of the challenges, right? It's you're finding like little silos of, know, whether it's a small business unit or individuals that have this deep domain expertise, but it's not written into the DNA of the company. You know, I think that that's been something big for you and I is like strategic partnerships as part of the DNA of partner Vista. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, everything that we're building here,

is off of the model of partner of partner ecosystem. Yeah. And it's been with partner markers since day one, right? In terms of like helping having them help us develop the product, you know, develop our process, you know, ideate on, on what the results look like. I we're building this in the ground up with, with them. Yeah. Purpose built purpose. So talk, talk to me a little bit about your vision. Like what is, all right, you're now the president, co-founder partner Vista.

What does this look like in a year from a product standpoint and a cultural standpoint? From a product standpoint, know, we're going to, we're going to be doing a lot of testing here over the first six months as we get pilots out to the market. Um, there's a lot of things that we're going to need to tweak. There's a lot of learnings that are going to happen, um, over the next six months. So I don't know how much of our, I think, I don't know if our product mix is going to change.

that much, think that we are going to make pivots. We're going to make some changes in order to really align to being a nurture and sales activation focused company. ⁓ I think that's part of our secret sauce is to really have that focus on the nurture and sales activation. So anything and everything we can do to adhere to getting the lead closer to close.

That's that's got to be our that's going to be our mission ⁓ so over the you know, I You know, I Think the the vision is is to build community I Think the mission is is to deliver on the promise. Yeah, I I couldn't agree more I think you know, even there's gonna be a lot of pivots I think what we have today is equally as good as anything that could be gotten out there But it's through the lens of strategic partnerships, right? ⁓

But I think it's really just solving that challenge of, I'm a partner marketer. You know, we just formed this new strategic partnership. I don't have infrastructure, headcount of resources to really nurture, engage and qualify these leads, but I got to show pipeline or the flip side of what we're seeing is we have a lot of leads and there's no pipelines installed. How can I quickly apply the partner Vista marketing funnel to engage, you know, nurture and qualify these leads? And I think that that's it. And there's going to be a lot of pivots that really, I think just blows that out the water. But you mentioned community.

So like why is community important to what we're doing? If we're solving this, this very specific problem, we do it well. Why, why community? Community is huge. I mean, it's what we heard over the last couple of years, you know, ⁓ we've heard it on, ⁓ on various people, guests on the podcast. we've heard it from people at meetups, at dinners, ⁓ where they, there's a yearning for

Rick Currier (22:28)

yeah, I think community is hugely important. Um, you know, I think it, it mirrors what we're trying to do in terms of building this with partner marketers, for partner marketers. think it's just a natural connection with community. But I think it's also just part of our core values of just like people first. mean, we're, going all in on AI and utilizing tech to solve some of these really important challenges. But the human connection is so important to.

you know, how we support partner marketers and how we build our business. I think the, business that we want to be part of, like being able to, you know, value individuals on the team and help them succeed and grow and with other, it's their personal aspirations or their professional aspirations. And so, I mean, I think community comes in and out of this and a lot of different angles. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's the pillar that we're standing on, right? It's, it is community. ⁓

It's it's you know, it's just going to be it's it's a fun ride. Yeah. So as far as the future and what lies ahead over the first year, I really feel like we've got a good opportunity for some really great growth. But that comes from a lot of learnings. So yeah, let me ask you just just to go back a little bit. You know, you left IDG Foundry. You started seven three media before you came on to partner Vista.

Tell me a little bit about what 7.3 Media is. Yeah, mean, 7.3 Media, it's something that I've always kind of dreamt of. ⁓ It was, you know, as when I was back cutting my teeth, ⁓ I had these visions because I was also in a band at the time. And I had these visions of an agency that could take care of your advertising and also have this music side that local artists could then be part of that

advertising community where I could bring them in for a jingle, bring them in for a song for to create your commercials, to be part of your campaign. So really bringing artistry and not just musicians, but just artists in the community. If there was designers, whatever, I wanted to build a agency studio that was encompassing of everything. So that was, that's where seven three media came from. And the seven three, ⁓ it's

It's not only my birth year, it's, you know, if there's a lyricist that I'm really aligned to, his name is Mos Def. And he has a line in one of his songs that says, 12, 11, 7, 3, my life is testament, praise the beneficent. So I always say, like when I heard that line, the first time I heard the song, I was like, did he just say my birthday? I was like, we have the same birthday, 12, 11, 7, 3. And so that's where 7, 3, I was like, instead of saying 73, I was like, I like 7, 3, I like the flow of that. So.

Again, so hearing the flow, understanding what flow means in our workspace. it's this 7.3 just kind of has that flow for me and it's just organic. It's, you know, it's holistic to me. So that's where 7.3 MediaFore comes from. It's a flow of media and from a consulting perspective. love it. So it's just more community, more personal human connection. Absolutely. Right. Again, tech inside of it. it's almost like themes throughout your life.

Yeah. I mean, we're blessed, right? It's like, ⁓ connections happen for a reason. You know, I truly believe that I truly believe that the universe is always at work. ⁓ and that we meet people and we re intertwine with people in our lives because we're meant to meet. Right. And I think there's, you know, some of those meetings are, are, are, are kind of just momentary and other ones are just long lasting. But I think all of them have an effect positive.

And you know, the only time they're negative is when they're not, they're not meant to be. The connection is not supposed to be there. What do you, end on this. What are you most excited about? You know, we're, we're 90 days in, you're officially president, co-founder, partner Vista, you know, next nine months, what are you most pumped for? I'm really excited to deliver. That's, that's like, that's my, my, be able to deliver on our promise, to deliver on everything that we are, you know, pitching out there.

That's what I'm most excited about is really kind of delivering on the promise and watching the company grow in our vision. Right. And in just the people that are trusting us, you know, and having them say, I knew I knew I bet right. I knew I bet right on these guys. And that's going to be the biggest joy for me nine months from now, 12 months from now. And then beyond that is just the iterations that we're going to make into the company of

building our own products, building a platform, just building everything. So it's exciting times. Every day I wake up, I'm super excited, I'm pumped. We're working probably harder than we've ever worked since the early part of our careers. But I gotta tell you, I love going to bed tired and I love waking up energized. Love it, I think it's a great place to end it. So Honda, we're super excited to have you on the team and here we go. Thanks, Ricky. Cheers. Cheers.