Transcript:

Rick Currier (00:01)

Well, hi Mo’Shai, thanks for joining.

MoShai (00:03)

Hi, Rick. Nice to see you. Thank you for having me. In person, yes. But it's good to see you.

Rick Currier (00:05)

Well, to be fair, I don't think we've actually met in person. don't, don't, does virtual,

I don't know if virtual counts, you know, cause I know coming out of COVID, I would meet someone in person and I'd have to remind myself I've actually never met this person in person before. Yeah, maybe.

MoShai (00:20)

I feel like we may have met.

we probably, I think we did meet in person. Yeah, because we met, I think we met at the offices, maybe in Yeah.

Rick Currier (00:26)

Yeah, probably when I was at IDG Foundry. was there for a while.

⁓ up in Seattle? ⁓

okay. All right, very good. Well, it's a good place to start. Why don't we talk a little bit about who you are, what you're doing. We mentioned Seattle, Microsoft, so I think people might get the idea.

MoShai (00:40)

you

Yeah, so I am Mo’shai Gibbs, affectionately known as Mo by many, but I am a global partner marketing manager here at Microsoft. I have been with Microsoft for about three and a half years. I work with some of the strategic partners and alliances. So I've worked with all partners such as Nvidia, ServiceNow, to partners such as BlueYonder and

a couple of others over my years here. And I've been in partner marketing actually for 15 years. So the big stretch of my career has been in the partner marketing world with about two years of that 15 years being focused on being focused on solutions marketing. Actually, I am giving myself I'm aging myself more because

It's actually only been 10 years. keep thinking 2015, I keep saying 15. So 2015, I made the transition to tech. So partner marketing has been 10 years.

Rick Currier (01:41)

Hahaha

Very cool. So what were you doing before partner marketing?

MoShai (01:50)

I actually grew up in advertising and that agency. So it's, it's very, it's something I speak about a lot because, the transferable skillset there, ⁓ just being in pretty much going from the agency side to the client side, but how you build relationships, ⁓ understanding the, the other, another, business, like jumping in on another business and being able to kind of get your hand, a handle on that, on that brand and just.

I brought all of that over into the partner marketing space. So it definitely helped out a lot. I was working at an agency for a couple of years here in Phoenix, Arizona called R &R Partners. And then for about four years, four and a half years, I worked at an agency in LA called Campbell EWOD Advertising. So I worked on some accounts.

My account, my biggest account was Kaiser Permanente, but I worked on like Gyro Dough Chocolates and Chicken of the Sea. Those were the fun ones.

Rick Currier (02:52)

Very cool. Do you miss it all or do you just love tech now?

MoShai (02:56)

So I love tech now. I do miss the creativity, right? But I also feel that just in the world, and that world has changed so much as well. like agencies have evolved in such a different, I think the work is probably still the same. ⁓ Cause I do a lot. I can get creative on my end as well, but I miss it sometimes. I don't miss it to go back. I like where I'm at.

Rick Currier (03:25)

Yeah.

MoShai (03:26)

I did.

Rick Currier (03:26)

Well, let's dive into that a little bit. Like, you you just mentioned you're getting creative on your end. More broadly speaking, do you think partner marketers are creative enough? Do you feel like they're more creative than maybe their counterparts not in partner marketing? Let's talk a little bit about that and how are you being creative in your role?

MoShai (03:41)

Hmm.

my gosh. So I will say this at a baseline. feel like if there's ever an opportunity for you to be able to tap in just a little extra, and we'll basically like take things a little further or being able to do things, ⁓ take a project and maybe someone didn't ask you to do this project, but you feel like you can stretch your creative, ⁓ creative abilities. I always jump in on those types of things because there are a lot of things you do in a box.

So just the world of partner marketing is so different from a lot of the different areas of marketing. I've actually been in spaces where people don't even consider partner marketing marketing. ⁓ And yes, like I've actually been told before from someone else, because I was like, I'm interested in hearing about that. And then they were like, it sounds like you want to move over to marketing, Mo. And I'm thinking to myself, I am in marketing. Like, what do you mean?

I build campaigns, I build strategy, I execute against those strategies. so I tend to be creative when I can. And I think sometimes my imagination gets away from me because I will have like these big, large ideas. I'm like, okay, I know that it's gonna take heaven and earth just to get them done. ⁓

Rick Currier (04:46)

Yeah.

MoShai (05:14)

Sometimes I will put forth the foot to do it just because of the opportunity to take the creativity across the brands that I work on. Especially my, I'm really mostly focused in how do we drive pipeline? How do we drive amplification of the better together narratives? And sometimes you can get really stuck in doing the same old things, Like webinars or doing this and doing that, but how do we make it

go to the edge a little bit, right? Like, how can we take this webinar and amp it up? Just maybe one step. Maybe we are bringing in someone, maybe it's not a webinar, maybe it's just a live demo and then we do an AMA at the end, or maybe it's a live stream versus a webinar, or maybe we do it on site at an event and we then take the content and then cut it down and make it a series, or whatever that may be, just kind of always trying to think about ways to

Rick Currier (05:45)

Mm-hmm.

MoShai (06:13)

make it creative and just bring that flair, that extra fun flair to it, I think.

Rick Currier (06:19)

You know, it's

funny, I can see that because I was talking to someone earlier this week and we were doing a little meetup in Denver with other partner marketers and she was saying it was nice to be around other partner marketers because some of the other partner organizations she's in, not a lot of them are in marketing, right? They're more on the alliance or sales side. ⁓ But at the same time, I feel like the partner marketer is almost more of a marketer than your average marketer because...

MoShai (06:36)

Mm-hmm.

Rick Currier (06:44)

you know, working with some of these larger organizations, you'll have content marketing specialists and social marketing specialists and you know, just go down the specialist line. And that's all they do. On the partner marketing side, even at these large organizations, I feel like you have to do it all. You have to do everything from strategy down to like social copy. And I mean, you're literally a jack of all trades.

MoShai (06:58)

Yes.

I think the best part about it though, is that I'm trying to stop moving too, because I feel like my background is like blurred. I ⁓ will say though, that I work with a lot of talented marketers and other ⁓ functions, so product marketing teams and integrated marketing teams. But I do realize like in our, in where I sit at, like kind of have to have an ability to do it all.

Rick Currier (07:09)

Nah, you're okay. Most people are just listening anyways.

MoShai (07:32)

We have to be the project manager. You got to be the integrated market. You got to be the growth marketer. got to be something. You got to be the product marketer for your internal audience, right? Because you kind of are the owner of the brand. And so you need to understand the solutions and stuff to take back to your teams, especially if you're working on specific, uh, different company solutions like I do.

So there's a little bit of an element there just across the board. And that's, think that's the fun part about the job, right? That's what keeps us partner marketing people coming back to work every day. Cause you get a little bit of everything.

Rick Currier (08:11)

Yeah, let's talk a little bit about pipeline. I know that's a big challenge for a lot of people I talk to out in the industry right now. What are you seeing with pipeline in general? Is it a big challenge on the programs you're working on? Have you seen any successes in terms of strategies or tactics that you're willing to share? What's the world of pipeline like today from your perspective?

MoShai (08:33)

So I will say, I know you said today, but I'll take it back just a little bit because it's always been an issue. And I think in partner marketing is always going to be an issue just because of tracking and right. There's tools out there that allow us to do it better. Hopefully, agentic AI will hopefully allow us to get more accurate and streamlined with the part, with the pipeline and the tracking and the measurement and the metrics. But there are so many different, I feel like there's so many different blockers to.

of being able to measure pipeline effectively. So in my former life, when I first started in this industry, one of the things that I prided myself on was being able to, I was really close to my sales team. So I was kind of on the other end of the spectrum because I put together campaigns. ⁓ I was a partner at, I was a Microsoft partner. So I will come to Microsoft and say, I have this campaign that I want to do.

And I would say, this is how we're going to track it. then I will launch my campaigns to my sales team. I will say, here's the campaign call. This is if things are, if you're seeing leads come in or if you're taking leads from this campaign, making sure that you continue to track it against this campaign. So it was a little bit easier for me to say this campaign drove this amount of pipeline drove these deals, one close, whatever that may be.

Here's the revenue time. Here's the ROI. It's 10 to one was, you know, whatever that may be. But I think now I am pretty far removed from the sales teams in my role now. So things are a little bit more difficult. So we definitely depend. I'm on the other side. So I depend more on that partner for the tracking and things like that. So there are just limitations in that and things are not always automated or streamlined. However, ⁓

Everything you do is pipeline in my it drives pipeline right and so when you look at a full go-to-market strategy Marketing pretty much touches each piece of that strategy right so messaging you have an element of marketing there if there's an offering If there is a product that you're to market with marketing helps with the messaging marketing helps with the sales enablement piece marketing will help with if there's an offering that comes in from

the sales team or what or whatnot. ⁓ marketing will help get that out to the masses. We help with the digital experience. If there's an event we make, we set ⁓ the bones up so the sales team can be able to go and execute that, that event and be on site. So we have an element in all of that. So sometimes I look at, if I'm unable to accurately track pipeline, I, I look, I'll go back and say, okay, we did this many touch points and

⁓ Obviously, if you have targeted lists and things like that, as deals close, you're going to know what is, what you can attribute to your marketing efforts that you did, especially if it's a complete go to market plan, right? And it's very tack tied into what sales is focused on and what everyone that's a part of that, what the product team is focused on. So.

That's kind how I look at things now, but overall, yes, pipeline is always where you want to go. Pipeline, acceleration of pipeline, and then obviously looking at those one deals is so important.

Rick Currier (11:55)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned plan. was talking to Mike Mahoney at Taneum and he was talking about just the importance of ⁓ starting with a plan. I think a lot of people are struggling with pipeline, especially for the reasons you mentioned in terms of just attribution and partner source and partner influence. But I think if you don't have a plan, that's probably a good place to just start.

MoShai (12:30)

Yes, I think in the majority of time I will say 95 % of the time people come without a plan they'll come with tactics But I'm like, okay, you got a strategy first, what's the business goals? What is all of that set up? Here's the strategy This is why we're driving it and then your plan Comes after the strategy your tactic is a part of the plan. A lot of times people will just have the tactics

There's nothing threading them together. Like there's no messaging tying them together. Like sales is siloed doing this and marketing siloed doing this. And then if it's partner marketing, it's even ⁓ three or four more layers of silos that's happening on different areas. ⁓ you know, I don't think there's a perfect formula here.

But I do think that, like you said, there needs to be a plan. the only way you have a plan is if you have a strategy. Strategy comes first. And a lot of times I think we skip out on the strategy. And that's also due just to timing. You know, sometimes you got to go and, but as long as you know where you're going, like why are you going over there, the why behind it, I think that kind of also alleviates the fact that there's not always a plan or strategy in place.

Rick Currier (13:33)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

well you know especially with you know tools now you know know Microsoft's got a number of these tools I used to my last company you know just with AI it's it's getting harder and harder to have the excuse you just don't have time to I mean there's certain tools I think that people can be utilizing to least create you know 90 % of the plan and then you you got to put your 10 % into it in terms of revising and reviewing but you know there's tools out there to help you even though we have to move quickly.

MoShai (14:15)

Yeah, no, I agree. There are tools that are out there. I think one of things I cried myself on is that if I have the opportunity to get ahead of things, I'm always looking around a corner, especially if I've already been through it, right? If I've been through the craziness of like the last minute or the not having a plan or anything like that, I'm like, I'm not going to make that mistake again. Let's try to get ahead of it. But I think the...

the most important lesson I've learned is that not everyone thinks that way because everyone has different priorities, right? Like, you may have 10, 15 different things happening, and I'm always looking around the corner like, this is coming up and we need to get in front of it. And if we don't, I already know two weeks ahead that ⁓ I'm gonna be having to run ⁓ with it. And so that's been trying to get the strategy.

set up ahead of time. So my plan is already in motion when people are coming through asking, yep, I already got that budget. Yep, I already thought about that. And that's something I am very focused on ⁓ myself.

Rick Currier (15:27)

Are you utilizing AI at all to help you stay ahead? Because it's very fast paced, so...

MoShai (15:33)

It is fast paced.

I leverage a couple of tools. mean, obviously when you, Microsoft 365, like Copilot, the tools, the productivity tools, don't know what I was going to say. Productivity tools that are within Microsoft 365, they all leverage Copilot. So I'll leverage that across the board as far as like to stay in...

I still am so old school with my to-do lists. It's really hard to get away from it because when I write things down, automatically remember a lot of my alerts and things that go off I don't look at. So like I will literally need like an AI tool to come off the screen and like sit in my face and tell me it's time for you to do this. I just sent you this or I just booked this for you. then.

Rick Currier (16:15)

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's funny, it's like... Yeah.

MoShai (16:31)

I gotta go and double check it and make sure it looked right. So those are things that I to start getting used to. But I definitely leverage, obviously, content and emails, making sure my inbox is organized and things copilot for that. I leverage it a lot for that. Scheduling meetings. That's something I've done as far as like, I don't have to.

When I want to write agendas and things like that, I don't have to write the, I'm very big on, I'm only accepting meetings with agendas in it. So like leveraging Copilot, to create the agendas and stuff based on the conversations. That's been pretty helpful and that's automatic. It just kind of comes up and then you edit as needed. Yeah. And then there's a couple of other things, know, but Copilot is our UI for all things.

Rick Currier (17:01)

Mm-hmm.

cool.

MoShai (17:28)

for all things AIs are.

Rick Currier (17:29)

So is

it pretty much from ⁓ just an individual contributor ⁓ productivity standpoint? Are you seeing any applications for the broader partner marketing role or function at this point?

MoShai (17:37)

Yeah.

There's nothing specific for I'm not I'm not using anything specifically for partner marketing. I've created a couple of chat agents that ⁓ helped me with my partner. So ⁓ as far as like ⁓ feeding it like, hey, I'm doing this. And then that way it already has all the information that I am working on. So

Rick Currier (17:47)

Yeah.

What's been your experience

with that? Has that performed up to expectation or does it have some way to go in terms of creating your own agent?

MoShai (18:14)

Um, so I like, I step out of my Microsoft world, um, and just say, is me, Mo’Shai Gibbs in the world, not, not at work. Uh, it's pretty simple, right? Like is the chat piece of it is pretty simple. Obviously now they have more of the autonomous versions that you can work on and things like that. It's simple, but you have to feed. You have to make sure whatever you're feeding the, like, what's the data you're giving it in order for it to make sense of what you want it to do.

Rick Currier (18:40)

Mm-hmm.

MoShai (18:44)

And so in my personal life, like I've leveraged chat GPT and Claude and some other ones, and I created my own GPTs that helped me with personal things, right? So I'm a caretaker. And so I want to know more about with the laws and things changing and budgets and stuff. like, what are the services, what's happening here in my state? What are the laws I need to watch for? When are he's going to take impact?

Rick Currier (19:10)

Hmm.

MoShai (19:14)

I get those updates and I've automated some automated, I've added in automated prompts like monthly. So that happens and I get that information. And I've also done it to where I have leverage it as a tool too. So you can go in and create those yourself. You basically give it the personality you want. You give it the tools you want. So I've taken that framework and tried to.

⁓ Mimic it but obviously in the professional like what do I need to do and it's been pretty much the same ⁓ Leveraging some of the internal tools that work ⁓ but you just have to have the right things because it your agents only go as far as the data goes right so it's the same with everything else in in life and in world if I am Pulling a trash a trash bag and I'm throwing it in my closet. My closet is gonna stink

Rick Currier (19:58)

Yeah.

MoShai (20:11)

is going to be bad. Whatever you're throwing in, your output is always going to be bad, right? Well, it's always is pretty much how whatever you're feeding in and what's the data you're giving it. And so it's pretty simple to set up that simple. But I think also, too, I think there is like four or five layers deep to go on those things. Right. Like so you have one that you can just leverage every day and then you can have one that's more autonomous. That might take a lot more work. That's not as just simple as someone.

Rick Currier (20:15)

Yeah.

MoShai (20:41)

myself setting it up, right? I might need someone else to help set that up or maybe creating some code to make it what I needed to do. But I think that's beyond my technical expertise. So hopefully we'll get there soon.

Rick Currier (20:54)

You

Well,

I think you're ahead of most people that I've talked to, honestly. I mean, I think a lot of people are utilizing the chat platforms for helping create content, a lot of email, a lot of personal productivity. I don't talk to many people that have created their own agents. So that's really cool that you're doing it, especially to support your personal life, because I'm sure that's going to bleed into the professional life pretty soon here. And I think you're going to be ahead of most people. And it's inspiring me to go out and create my own now. So I got to think about what I want to do.

MoShai (21:14)

Yeah.

I hope so.

Yeah, I hope so. I mean, it's pretty helpful and it's very specific though. So that's the thing. You got to have the time. Like that one I call ⁓ that specific GPT. I call it Hey JB, because my brother, whose name is Jonathan. So I'll go in there and I'll say, Hey JB, can you ⁓ take a look at the, I don't know, the new ⁓

bill that just was passed that's going to impact medical, Medicare, whatever, when would that take place? And then I will tell it like, you give me an update? Like you can automate a prompt. So like I can automate the prompt to come through every like however, whenever I needed to. And then it will just kind of send the updates to the chat. So that's as far as I've gotten in. I know some have rolled out. I'm kind of scared of the

Rick Currier (21:57)

Yeah.

MoShai (22:20)

the chat or the avatars, the talking avatars. I'm not really ready for that yet because I just can't imagine. ⁓ But I think that's my next thing on my learning ⁓ that I want to Yeah.

Rick Currier (22:34)

It's moving fast, isn't it? It's crazy.

So going back to the partner marketing side of things, what are you most excited for that's kind of over the horizon? do we still have to figure out some of these basic challenges like attribution?

MoShai (22:46)

No, I'm always excited. I am always excited about everything. I get excited about the most random things. Um, but I will say I am excited about when I think about the partners I work with or partners I've worked with previously, I always get excited about the co-innovation about the things that some of our like engineering teams or people I've worked with in the past that they come up with to help drive or solve problems. So.

Whether that is in like healthcare or you know manufacturing and things like that like I get really excited about that piece because I think I have the opportunity to work on getting it to market and to helping to tell the story ⁓ But I think just in a general sense partner marketing I'm excited just to see it our our world I guess our roles

become a lot more efficient and streamlined. Hopefully, you know, some of the issues around, but I still think attribution and data and all that stuff will always be an issue because it's, unless everything just kind of shuts down for like a couple of months and everyone starts over and start, which will probably never happen.

Rick Currier (23:47)

Mm-hmm.

MoShai (24:11)

I don't think we'll get there and then sharing data and all that stuff. you gotta have, there's always gonna be some blockers there, right? Especially ⁓ if you trigger something from one company over to another one, there's always, no matter the interoperability, I think there's always blockers there. So in partner marketing, you always have some type of, I feel like manual piece to it just because of those aspects. ⁓ But I do feel like things will get,

Rick Currier (24:28)

Yeah.

MoShai (24:39)

better and become more efficient. Like those processes will become easier over time and hopefully allow us as partner marketers to be able to do our job better.

Rick Currier (24:49)

Yeah, I think so too, right? Like you'll be able to spend more time on the relationship, more time thinking creatively, right? If some of this stuff is just automated, but I think you're right. think a lot of those blockers are always going to exist and a lot of it's going to come back down to, well, how's your relationship with your partners? Right. And hopefully we get more time to invest in that.

MoShai (24:56)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, that's, I will tell you, that's probably like, if I had a, if this was school and I had a report card, I will tell you that that is probably where I get the A at. Some of the things I might be getting B pluses and Bs, but the relationship part is something I work on, ⁓ very frequently. And I definitely am intentional about because you don't have a good relationship with your partners. kind of.

Rick Currier (25:19)

Hahaha!

MoShai (25:35)

is the downfall of everything. Like you can't get the work done, you can't collaborate, you can't speak, can't compromise, cannot be creative together, you can't co-innovate. You don't have a good relationship. And it's not saying you have to be best friends, but it is saying that you have to know how to communicate, you gotta respect, you gotta show up for the business together, you gotta have the same goal. And might not have the same process to get to that goal, but...

Being able to work together because you have a good relationship to get to that goal is so important. So that's, I agree with you. I think, yeah.

Rick Currier (26:11)

Yeah, it's funny

how advanced we've gotten in technology and at the same time how important yet that basic foundation of just a good relationship really matters and can drive success. What other advice do you have for, you know, maybe people are starting off in their careers or coming up in partner marketing. you're at a great company doing great things, working with great partners. You you've learned a lot. other advice besides relationships do you have for people?

MoShai (26:19)

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, I mean, I'll just think back to relationships too, like always put that first when you focus on building a relationship. And then people will say how, and I know that you said besides relationships, but like I really do think that's the genesis of all things. But also being able to, I'm a, what do they call I learn it all, not I know it all. So.

Rick Currier (26:53)

Mm-hmm.

MoShai (27:01)

I have had the opportunity to transition and work on different partnerships in my past life. was partner marketing lead for Microsoft and I, the company I worked at, like I, all of the Microsoft business was, ⁓ under me. So I worked, I worked on Microsoft cloud hardware and I did not, I was like, well, what is this stuff? Like what is all of the licenses? And then we were making the move and things like that, but.

Like being able to study. So I might not, still might not know the, I might not be a 201, like L201, level 201 be able to, but I can articulate it at least at ⁓ a 101 and I can go in and understand it and have the conversations. And that's always something that I feel like is so important. You prep for things. So I, you know, be a learn it all, build the relationship, be a learn it all.

Rick Currier (27:58)

Thank

MoShai (28:01)

⁓ I will say something that has become very important and I think in the last like year to me too is like prepping preparation Not everything is urgent And then to me if everything is urgent, that means that there's no clarity. There's no plans ahead of time So always I think in partner marketing having your strategy and your plan and being able to prepare It won't completely

Remove the urgency from things but it will He hope your nervous system just a little bit better which in turn goes back to you giving you more time to Go and study and learn and then in turn give me it's showing that you're showing up and you're happy You have time to work with your partners on things. So I will say those are my top three things that I You know, and those are qualitative things. Those are not quantitative things, but I will say they do lead to the quantitative

aspects of being able to drive ROI, showing up and knowing what you're speaking about and just having the key relationships with different, with your partners and the different teams at the partners so important.

Rick Currier (29:14)

Yeah, I mean, they're for me, they're, they're basics in the sense that they're foundational, right? And anyone I know that's really good at what they do, they've mastered the basics and they even go back to the basics all the time. And when things are messing up, it's right. And then just, okay.

MoShai (29:24)

Yeah, all the time. There's like skills

that you don't think about. Like sometimes I will see people and I'm like, I am smarter than this person, but this person is so good at this that I need to adapt that. Like I've seen people just blow me out the water and it's because of one thing that they do and that could be just

how they manage up or how they show up in a room with C-suite. And I don't see them like that in how they show up like that. don't see them in that eye and that's like that way in other spaces, but I see them that when they show up and so they have the attention of them. It's just certain things, like ⁓ small, solid, but big things that I think go a long way. And there are skills that people don't really.

Rick Currier (29:54)

Mm-hmm.

MoShai (30:22)

feel like are useful, but you gotta tap into them, especially for the new generation. ⁓

Rick Currier (30:27)

Don't be a know-it-all, be a learn-it-all. I love it. Awesome. I think that's a great, great note to end on. Mo’Shai, thank you so much for joining. This has been wonderful. I really appreciate it. come back on sometime. I'd to talk more. Awesome. And hopefully I'll see you again soon, locally or up in headquarters. So we'll figure it out. All right. Thank you.

MoShai (30:30)

Yeah.

Thank you, Rich. Thanks for having me. This was fun. I love to talk. ⁓

Yes.

Awesome. Thank you so much.