Do partners have a role in SAAS ? - Denise Sangster CEO Global Touch

Denise Sangster is recognised  in the top 10 most influential women in tech, working as CEO of Global Touch Denise consults with many leading tech companies on their partner strategy.

Denise joins Vic and Sam to talk about the future of partners in the era of consumption.
Denise is a wonderful advocate of this critical route to market which often is the ‘under dog’ to enterprise sales which is where most of the recognition goes.

This podcast  is great timing as Global Touch have just published their new Global Partner Outlook Survey, a must read but for a quick intro we touch on all the main challenges.

 The Outlook covers the three  markets of US and Canada, EMEA and APAC   - the good news partners are bullish about the 2022 outlook

On the podcast we also discovered Global Touch and Amplified Group have measurement or telemetry as Denise calls it at the heart of what we do. Whether its the impact of partner go to market or speed of sales execution being able to measure it, is the key to unlocking it’s potential!

The Partner Outlook Survey results are available by subscription.  For further details about this edition’s results or a subscription, please email us at PartnerOutlook@globaltouch.com.

We would love you to follow us on LinkedIn! 

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Transcript

Sam 0:10

Welcome to Get Amplified from the Amplifying Group, the podcast for tech industry leaders and aspiring leaders who want to help their companies execute faster. As always, we're virtual. I'm at home in Bucks in the sunshine. And in a change from the usual deepest, darkest Oxfordshire, Vicky is somewhere in deepest darkest United States. Vicki, whereabouts are you?

Vic 0:32

I am in Miami, and I have to admit, it feels like I've come home. I hadn't realized how much I'd missed it. And actually, I just did a quick post on LinkedIn to say to all my friends this side of the pond. And it's it's it's felt like a reunion. It's just been absolutely amazing. It's uh I feel very lucky to be here, and I'm really looking forward to the team that I'm working with tomorrow.

Sam 0:54

Well, enjoy your holiday.

Vic 0:57

Very funny. No holiday.

Sam 1:00

So you're actually in probably closer to the time zone of our guest than I am, aren't you? Um perhaps you can introduce them for us.

Vic 1:08

Oh, I'd love to. So we have with us today Denise Sangster, who is CEO of GlobalTouch. And Denise is also recognized as in the top 10 most influential global women in tech, which is a phenomenal thing to be recognized for, Denise. So it's a real privilege to have you with us today.

Sam 1:32

Where are you on that list, Vicki?

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Very funny. Number one. She's number one, Sam, and great to be with both of you today.

Sam 1:41

Thanks, Denise. Really good. Wow. I mean, that's a that's a a lofty guest to have on our on show today. So thank you very much for joining us. Um, would you mind giving us a little bit of your career history? How you got to where you are, please?

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Absolutely. Um, I started um in back in university days, I started as a math major and I decided I did not want to go into math. And I was uh weaned or pushed towards computer science and business. And after college, I ended up working for a database startup company, which became SQL Server at Microsoft. Um, and from there, after the company I was with was acquired by Microsoft, I ended up starting a consulting company, helping to work primarily for technology partners that were located in Europe or in other parts of the world, um, helping them with their product strategies and portfolios and trying to get them to be more competitive and bring in more innovation to their customers. And I did that for a number of years and ended up building a, at the time, the largest IT multi-country conference in Europe called Eurochannels, which we sold to another company back in 2001. Um, but that was really fun to build that and to have pan-European conversations when um the borders were going down and we were working towards a unified um Europe. And it was it was just a really exciting time. So I sold that business, I continue doing management consulting, and which I'm doing today. And we are really focused on leading with strategy that's based on data and storytelling around the data.

Sam 3:20

Fantastic. Sounds good. So, would you give us a bit more uh detail about Global Touch? What it is that you guys do specifically and your expertise around partner go to market, please.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

So we we work with companies that want to scale fast and efficiently. And that means we work with partners. And partners can be a number of different things from classic resale partners to um global GSIs to um working on embedded technologies. And we work across all of that. We help companies understand um how to lead with data, to harness that data, and to make really forward-thinking programs and enablement that that drives partners to more efficient paths towards profitability and uh mutual revenue.

Vic 4:08

You know, it's it's really interesting that you say that you're focused on data, Denise, because my background, as as you know, is on the partner side of tech. And even now with clients that we're working with, partners always feel like, or the partner team inside a tech company feels like the underdog. It feels like they're not the ones that are getting the recognition versus the guys who are the enterprise sales guys that are bringing in the big, you know, multi-million dollar deals. And yet we know how profitable it is to go to market, as you say, in scale through partners. So the fact that you have the data to demonstrate this, gosh, that's so valuable. Because it felt like that was really missing. It felt like it was more gut feel than proof.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

I you know, I Vicki, I think you've hit on the the dirty secret of the IT industry, which is partners bring in the bulk of revenue for most IT companies, but yet the biggest accolades go to the direct sales team. And and I think I think this comes down to one word, and that's about predictability. But the direct sales teams, there they can better predict revenue than the mass of partners. And because IT companies are not um understanding the deep economics of how partners make money with their products, and they they miss the opportunity to build a more accurate, predictable um market for revenue. And that's really that's really a lost opportunity. And that that is really uh a reflection of the IT industry is still utilizing what worked 15 years ago and not what's working today.

Vic 6:01

That's really fascinating that you say that, particularly with the the move to the SaaS uh way of go to market, which I'm sure we're gonna get dig into. Because I remember I was running Citrix's global SMB business. And firstly, interestingly, on predictability, my forecasting was the most accurate in the business because SMB was so predictable, and because it was a run rate business, I could predict at the beginning of the quarter what we were going to do at the end of the quarter.

Sam 6:31

It's modelling rather than forecasting, almost, isn't it?

Vic 6:34

It was really, really fascinating. But what I was going to say was the passion that kept me in that role was I was so worried what was going to be the future of partners when all these vendors moved to a subscription model. Where was their role going to be? So I'd love to get your your thoughts around that. And Sab, I'm sure he's a good thing.

Sam 6:56

Yeah, well, so I'm just thinking about that. So I joined SoftCat in 1998. And you know, this was clearly pre-most of the SaaS stuff, but there was this thing around at the time called the ASP or application services.

Vic 7:10

That was cool, we sit check.

Sam 7:11

And and they were absolutely gonna kill resellers, and we were gonna be dead, and we weren't. And then eventually it sort of got rebranded as SaaS and we were gonna be dead, and then we weren't. So, Denise, I'm really interested in your view.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

Yeah, I don't I don't think SaaS, I don't think SaaS is a partner killer. If anything, it's it's actually good news for partners. I mean, uh partners partners make the bulk of their profit on services. And SAS introduces as uh this will sound counterintuitive, but it does introduce a new set of complexity to an organization. And that's where partners do really well. So where there's complexity, there's margin. Yeah. And that's and partners are there to help. And when I look at SaaS, I see all the value add through consultancy, through app development, and telemetry that partners can deliver to the table. And, you know, particularly around how they engage with the company. So are they delivering against the customer's business objectives? A SaaS app can't do that, but a partner can, and integrating that SaaS app, driving accelerated adoption, because once you get it adopted, um then you can expand it and utilize it and help gain more capability out of it. And I think the the third point there is that helping customers realize value as soon as possible. That's what partners do. That's not what's done internally, that's what partners help do. And without partners, um a lot of this technology would not come to life, or we'd have a lot of shelfware, which we do have a lot of shelfware. And when we have a lot of shelfware, that's because partners have, I believe, have not been actively engaged, and there hasn't been a commitment to of the customer to get it adopted and um to really use it to achieve their business outcomes.

Sam 9:08

I think that makes sense because vendors do have a tendency to bundle stuff. So the the customer is the end user customer is under pressure to take a suite of things when they only wanted one or two of them. And then, yeah, the challenge is absolutely getting them to use the other stuff so that they get value out of it and importantly see the value at renewal and potentially see their way to taking more of the suite of products in the future.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

There are partners around the world, and there's one or two in the UK that I think is absolutely best of class in the entire world, absolutely best of class, of driving telemetry into the customer suite, into the customer site, in order to drive an acceleration of IT investments because they can show how this technology has really connected into their MDs or their CEOs' priorities. And being able to show that and demonstrate that, and then show the bottom line benefits of how that contributed is just game changing. And that's what partners do very, very well. And some of those partners, again, that do that best are located in Europe.

Sam 10:15

Do you see a difference in the market between the US and the UK or the US and Europe in terms of maturity of partner, where you know, where they are with this stuff, or is it just different?

SPEAKER_00 10:28

Um, I think there there are a number of differences, but the biggest divide has always been about services. So as the IT industry really got going in the PC generation in the 1990s, um, partners were left to themselves to provide support and provide any kinds of capabilities to customers. I mean, there was a little bit done, but it was done at a fraction of the rate that it was done in the United States. In the United States, partners didn't really have to focus on services. And those that did start focusing on services were the early leaders in terms of profit. But um, even today, some of the bigger partners still don't have the deep bench skills that you see as commonplace in their uh AMIA rivals.

Sam 11:15

Interesting. Do you see that changing over time? No.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Or is is services just embedded in the vendor side of things than I think I well, I I so what will change in the future is that vendors are doing more to support their partners in in Europe than they used to do or in AMIA. Um, and those can be done through a lot of call center technology, which is anywhere in the world or through sun up services. So wherever the sun is up, somebody is answering the phone. Um, but the American partners, um, they're not they're not as um aggressive with services across across the market as you find in EMIA. Now, there are American partners, if they listen to this, they would be they would be um really offended by that and angry by that, but but it's true. There are there are good American partners that provide world-class capabilities, but it's not everywhere in America. Yeah, interesting.

Vic 12:12

Yeah, I would totally agree with that from my experience of from running some best practices in Europe and then taking it to the global channel, just how different the the partners were in the main in the US. It's a much more transactional business, or it feels that way.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

And it still is today. And you know, Europeans as a whole, and again, this is a gross generalization, but you're you're much more relationship-driven than Americans are. And I think that you know, that is reflected in how they've engaged in business. So I can remember one of the largest partners in Germany, um, when talking with their executives back in the late 90s, you know, they they expected their account teams to know everything about every person they were engaged with, their birth dates, their, you know, their wives' names, their kids' names, where they were in their education. They wanted them to know all of those details because they felt that that was part of building that business relationship. And and that's crossing that thin line in Amia of knowing the personal side with the business side. And there had been a very thick line before, but they wanted them to cross that to try and build those deeper relationships. And you know, we see some of that in the United States as well, or we we see quite a bit of it, but it's a different kind of relationship.

Sam 13:38

Really interesting, really interesting. I think I wonder if we maybe fell victim to some of that when trying to push the European agenda, Vicky. Um maybe we didn't we didn't realize how why the services element was so important to the vendors state side.

SPEAKER_04 13:59

Because it was digital.

Sam 14:01

Yeah, why they didn't realize how important it was to resell as service providers, solutions providers Europe side. Very interesting.

Vic 14:10

I think so, but also what I felt, um, certainly at my time at VMware, which is you know is a while back now, but it felt like actually corporate was really listening to us because we were driving new ways of working and the partnership. I mean, we've had Lamia Megdish on on the podcast. She really understood how she needed to build programs that started in Europe and then went back to the US versus the other way around, which is quite quite refreshing.

Sam 14:41

So, Denise, your company has has just published a new survey, am I right?

SPEAKER_00 14:47

We did. It's called um the Partner Outlook Survey, and it just went live on 16 May. Oh, brilliant. Very, very exciting. So very fresh.

Sam 14:57

Without wanting to give the game away, perhaps you could give us a bit of an insight as to what you want you discovered, and maybe we can direct people in the show notes to go and have a look at it.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Well, I I think the good news is that partners are very bullish around the world about um the calendar year 2022. Um, they in, you know, there's a number of challenges that they have identified, such as an inverted book-to-bill ratio. So, because of supply chain shortages, they have they can't they can't bill for the product and they can't deliver the services. So, for some in some markets, the services are quite um a multiplier on top of the amount of revenue that you you gain on the product. So that book-to-bill ratio is really um important to follow because that tells us something. In some, in some cases, it's two to three to four to five to ten times higher than it was a year ago, or even higher than that. So there are millions and millions of dollars that have not been billed by partners and they can't deliver the services around it. So their benches are underutilized right now. That doesn't mean they don't have things to do, but those rich services that to really drive the full value of that technology can't be delivered until the products are ready. And that's an industry-wide problem. Um, also, um, as we're moving into some inflationary, possibly tipping into recession, um, product prices are going up, not unexpected, and customers understand that, but we're seeing um an increasing number of price hikes. So not just one price hike, but two and three and four over a year's period of time. And that's a lot for partners to adjust to because some of their deals are multi-year deals, and that means that someone's going to have to eat that cost. And that's a challenge. That's a real challenge. And, you know, especially when you're dealing with the public sector in EMIA, many of those contracts are five-year fixed contracts, five-year price fixed. So having that go up is challenging. Um, we're also seeing some challenges with credit lines. So as uh partners are getting more into recurring revenue, uh, they're being asked to absorb the liability risk of the customer. And um many of the financing companies or the or the uh banks are saying that we're gonna take 100% of that liability and not parse it by year, but just give 100%, keep it on for the entire time of that of that contract. And that's creating some um supply chain or some credit line constraints for partners. Um and I think two other um issues is that we are seeing some economic insecurities, uh, one being geographic differences in terms of slowdown or potential recession, and the other is the impact of the Russian and Ukrainian war, where we're seeing um a bigger impact in AMEA, which I guess is not unsurprising, but to many of the partners that are nearer to where the war is taking place, they're seeing that as a multiplier um effect and really causing some challenges for them. Um, the last one is that um there's never been a time in the world where um cybersecurity was more important than now. And um, there just is simply not enough talent to address all of the security issues and plus um to fend off what's happening outside the United States and some of these um uh centers that are determined to hack and to create chaos. And this is an opportunity for partners, it's a huge opportunity, but it's also a risk. So those are kind of the highlights of it. Um, as Vicky, as you mentioned, Vicky, we um we segmented the data by three core geographies, the US and Canada, um, AMIA and APAC. And there are some differences between all of those markets. And um, that's the great thing about doing global work that I like is that you get to see the cultural effect, you get to see the economic and really what's happening geopolitically in those regions manifest more in by slicing that data that way.

Vic 19:19

You know, that's really fascinating that you just say that because I think the aha moment that I've just had is you actually look at the at three separate markets, whereas the vast majority of vendors, in fact, I don't think I know a vendor, you're probably gonna tell me differently. A partner program is a global partner program, it doesn't vary particularly by region.

Sam 19:39

Presumably, only those vendors that work with Global Touch see it as three separate markets. I've got to get a shameless plug-in for you, Denise, haven't I?

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Sam. That's lovely. I would disagree with you on this way, Vicky. They they see the words, they don't understand the nuances of what you said. The bigger challenge to that is that there has been no real innovation in partner programs per se. I mean, there's there's new things, there's new kinds of incentives and things like that, but but the construct of that is still very much the way it was 15 years ago. And it needs to be blown up and rethought. And that's really a fundamental challenge that I see today. And it makes the geographic, the lack of recognition of the geographic needs even more critical. Yeah. But you know, I think you have to break it down just just like you have to break Europe apart. Europe doesn't act the same. And you have to break these partner, these partner programs down the same way. There are um there are programs. So by the nature of the beast, because services is more into the DNA of Europe partners, not AMIA partners, but Europe partners. And even within Europe, there there are there are um markets that are much better at services than other markets. So, you know, it's not a one size fits all. And I think that's the challenge that when you're working globally, you know, I think I think what we really want to be looking at is are what are the near-term and the longer term issues that may impact partner revenue and and how that will impact the IT companies. So understanding that gives you a better advantage of where the market is going because they represent, depending on the company, it can be 95% or more of the total revenue can be coming from partners. And yet again, as you said earlier, Vicky, it's the direct sales guys that get all the accolades, but the partner team that is really delivering the bulk of this doesn't realize that. But you know, the the things that really interest me are are trying to gain the insights into the pre-trends, what's shaping the industry, what's happening with partners, how is go-to-market transformation progressing, how are the revenue models changing, particularly in a consumption and multi-cloud emerging era? And those are the things that I really am fascinated by. And I like by the nature of the business that I've done for the last 30 years, I like comparing and contrasting the three core regions of the world to each other. The APAC people don't like the fact that they're lumped together with ANZ and other markets and very different again. And ANZ in many ways, I mean back to your VMware days, ANZ led um led the virtualization effort for VMware. And that's one of the reasons that ANZ became such an early adopter of cloud. So virtualization led to cloud and cloud is now leading to other things. So those are kinds of things that I love to see in the market and like to track and pay attention to. They can go to our website and they can download it or they can send us an email to partneroutlook at globaltouch.com and we'll be happy to add them to our subscription list. It's free. So it's just a it's a great way to leverage what's happening in the field and to understand from those that are on the front lines. And we want to share some of that knowledge that we have with the broader market. So that's why we are doing this quarterly um this quarterly newsletter just to get our thoughts out there and to share them with the broader market. Makes sense seeing this stuff in aggregate but also in in in local geo detail can only help right yeah it's not local enough for most people they want to know tell me about what's happening in French and actually I want to know what's happened in in Bordeaux not necessarily what's happening in Paris but you know but it's it is that it's it's a start it's a help. And maybe that's where the consultancy gig comes in right well and I think the I think to Vicky's point the fact that most companies don't think of what are the differentiations or what are the differences um between the different markets at all times this is at least gives them a head start to start thinking that way.

Vic 24:28

Something that we talked about in the prep called Denise that isn't in the the notes here was moving to this more consumption model and the impact of customer success. You had some real really insightful views around customer success. And as you know customer success is is a real focus for us it's a real growing area for us amplified. So can you share a little bit on that?

SPEAKER_00 25:00

Yeah I mean I think the two I think what the customer success manager does and how telemetry is used is the is the crown jewels of getting into life cycle. And without both of those you can't even hope to be successful with life cycle. So what the CSM does and what they focus on is really a game changer to me. And when I look at uh when we go in and do deeper studies and evaluations of partner groups for a company this is one of the core questions that we like to ask as well as do you do you utilize telemetry with your customers and we find those partners that are using telemetry which is not just about the product telemetry but it's also about the customer telemetry of how they're working those are the ones that end up having higher profit and they're getting more success and traction into life cycle because customers customers will engage with you if they know how they're doing the problem is we don't as an industry tell them what the successes are we just tell them what they should be getting not actually what they got.

Vic 26:08

Right.

Sam 26:09

Yeah okay got it very interesting thank you so can we change gear a little and talk about IT Wondrous women please as we've got two on this call and I feel insignificant by comparison.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

And and Vicki of course is one of my favorites of all time and I was thrilled when she agreed to participate in IT Wondrous Women. So IT Wondrous Women is a blog series that we started coming up on two years and it's about really focusing in and just shotlighting these amazing women in technology who are around the world. And our goal is to really feature these leaders that may not be well known out of their country or may not be well known around the world but we want to give them a platform to be recognized and we're showcasing those who are actually IT leaders today or those that have roots in IT and maybe have gone into other businesses, not only letting others see what they're doing, but letting those that are following us to stand on our shoulders. We've so far we have um profiled more than 160 fabulous women which we call spotlights and we should surpass 200 by the end of this year. They're located in 16 countries and all are either serving in leadership roles as an executive and management and sales or marketing or partner organizations technology or as a thought leader or something else. And this is all about finding these these people and a lot of these women I have known for many years like like Vicky and you know it's like she's always impressed me as being one of those you know industry leaders innovators and ahead of market trends. And so showing who Vicki is and then having her answer the questions we have four categories and everyone who participates answers the same 10 questions. There's no exceptions doesn't matter if you're a CEO or if you're a manager everybody answers the same and they're divided into what we call fun facts such as what's the one thing your business colleagues don't know about you. And that one is hilarious. So we've had many many different answers from people with their colleagues don't know about them. We had them tell us about their career which are their top two experiences and and who helped shape their journey which we learned about Vicky's role with Mark Templeton at Citrix. And if you had that mentor what did they do for you and who were they and we'd like to link in those people as well. So there's a lot of different things including you know if you could uh what's the one thing that you would tell yourself at an earlier age so I'd love these kinds of questions and when I look at all of this together I really think this is a um a collection of shortcuts that women have shared with us. What are the shortcuts that have made them successful and we have a lot of men that read it and they find it really helpful. You know it takes it takes a lot of courage to answer questions like what's the biggest thing you've learned. It it does take courage to answer those kinds of questions and I love the fact that people are taking the time and effort to do that. And we've seen an unintended consequence of this blog series which is a number of women who have been featured have been headhunted to new jobs.

Vic 29:27

Really cool which is really really cool. Thank you for for everything that you you do.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

I'm really keen to know so we talked at the beginning about you being recognized as one of the most influential women in in tech can you just tell us a little bit about that and how that came about so we got we got contacted by a magazine that was looking at women and um they they were looking at some of our clients and their our clients recommended me as someone to participate and you know incredible honor first of all to have anyone call but the fact that um you know client recommended this was astonishing.

Vic 30:09

I mean and you've got some pretty impressive clients haven't you so that's uh I feel very blessed.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

I mean honestly I work really really hard and um that's one thing I really thank my father for is really trying to instill in me at an early age to do what I love to do. Also believe in the product of what you're doing and really work hard to provide value to your clients and treat them as clients for life.

unknown 30:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 30:41

And I really appreciate that. And that's that's what we try and do every single day. And and just because I don't have an active project with a client doesn't mean they're not a client. I still treat them like a client.

Vic 30:53

Yeah I I think we have exactly the same principles at the Amplify group exactly I don't think we've spelt them out quite the same as that but that that that is how much we care about our clients.

SPEAKER_00 31:03

They they make us I think that was the thing when I first met you Vicky that was what impressed me about you so much we had a conversation in London at uh one of the VMware AMIA packs and you were talking about how how do we add the right level of value to our partners so that we can get this business really going. And you were really you were asking all the right questions.

Vic 31:26

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

And knowing you know knowing the questions is sometimes the hardest thing of all but finding you know finding the answers is not as hard as knowing what the questions are.

Vic 31:37

Yeah yeah I I'm absolutely working so deliberately to surround myself with people that that can answer my questions.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

And sometimes it's there is no clear answer and you need to create or intertwine with a number of different things.

Vic 31:58

Well we're just constantly learning I think that's the thing we you know and we really appreciate that our partners understand that we're I say partners because we partner with our clients that they are we're learning with them.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

Every day is a school day yes and sometimes and sometimes and sometimes we may learn faster because we can look across different companies.

Sam 32:20

It's funny you asked you uh mentioned in your um IT wondrous women thing one of the questions that you asked is what would you tell your younger self? Because that is one of the questions we ask our guests on the podcast. So that's the next one I'm actually yeah we shameless I assume Denise had stolen it from us. So Denise in that case I'm gonna shamelessly throw that one at you.

SPEAKER_00 32:45

Okay. You know there's probably five things that stuck with me but um I I will I will preface this by saying I was I was I was really fortunate as a child I was involved in athletics. So um I had this amazing swimming coach from the time I was five years old who happened to be a three medal 1948 Olympic medalist named Ann Curtis Cunio at the London Games in 48 in swimming. And King George actually came to watch her compete and she is she was just absolutely dominant in the pool. She only competed in three events because that's all she was allowed to compete in at the time it was thought to be too um too unsafe for women to compete in more than three events. So she competed in the maximum and King George was so impressed with her two gold medal wins and her silver that he invited her to tea with the princesses at Buckingham Palace and you can actually Google that to see pictures of her coming out of Buckingham Palace in her team USA gear. But Ann Curtis um is somebody that influenced me and sadly she died the week before the the 2012 Olympics in London and I happened to be at the 2012 Olympics and I was at the swimming venue and I could just feel her presence there um before the game. So she she used to tell us and this is something that I have used in business my entire career which is to train like you've never won and compete like you've never lost and I love that train like you've never won and compete like you've never lost and that stuck with me my entire life and as I got to know Anne as an adult you know long years later, you know, I could see how that phrase you know played into my business world. So what I would tell myself if there were um if I if I could go back I would probably tell myself five things not just one thing but five things which is the first one is kind of trite which is dress dress for the job that you want or the part that you want which is more important if you're in person than if you're on video or remote this is why I've always dressed this is why I've always dressed like a rock star. Exactly exactly and you and you wear it well Sam you wear it well. I'm not giving up hope yet yes there you go the second is about um networking which is um learning to be an impactful networker and and and I would say that I'm a natural networker and I've had to learn how to be an impactful networker. And I learned I learned that from my father and from meeting his friends and moving on because um your network is only as good as the value that you can bring to that network and share with that network. And um LinkedIn has provided that seismic game game changer for all of us that it's how I found Vicky again. And those are those are things that make it a lot easier to stay in contact. The third thing is about failure. And this is a hard one for all of us and it's one that I think many individuals really fear is failure. And failure is a natural part of growth and expansion. I don't know any executive that hasn't failed miserably more than once or twice. And the ones that go on and really do well are the ones that pick it apart and really understand what were those what were those slight shifts in strategy or in direction that led to challenges. And that's really important because that's where you can learn to up your game. And and I love this quote by this American basketball star Michael Jordan that he'd missed more than 9,000 shots in his career and he had lost more than 300 games because when he was given the ball at the last minute to shoot that final hoop he missed and he he says very passionately that he's failed over and over and over again. And you know that's such a great reminder for us that we have to try things, we have to take risks, but we have to learn from them and move on. And I think two more that I would say to my younger self is mentoring is latch on to mentors but also remember that at some point you're going to be the mentor. I've been very lucky I didn't have one mentor probably my father was my biggest mentor but I didn't have just one mentor I had lots of different people around the world that were mentoring me about lots of different things. And um it is you're really lucky. And the final one I would say is always be prepared preparation. That's the distinguishing thing that I don't think young people um really appreciate. And I know at a young age um that was something that whenever I went to a meeting I was really I was over prepared. I would rather work with a junior person that is prepared than to work with someone with five to ten year years of experience that's not well prepared.

Sam 37:54

Yeah yeah really good so as we draw to a close we always ask our um guests on the podcast what would be your three key takeaways for our listeners we've covered an awful lot of ground so there's going to be some some serious dredging to find out what you what are your key nuggets for our for our listeners but let's go for it.

SPEAKER_00 38:16

Well assuming that I understand the question correctly I would say be curious that would be number one and that's with learning that's with reading that's with listening think beyond your your local market think I mean thinking global is really trite and because of supply chain shortages today thinking globally is not necessarily in vogue but reading magazines from other markets finding different topics to read about I think is really crucial and just being curious what's going on and how culture changes business and how business changes culture understanding those dynamics really really important. The second is I would say to focus on what you can get back. It's not what you can take but what you can get back and whether you're a mentor or you're doing something for the industry like IT Wondrous women or something else being a thought leader or writing or speaking just get back. It's really important go to a school and teach kids about business and the and about technology mentor athletes who are trying to move on from an athletic world or Olympians into something else. There's so many things that you can do and I think if you can just just start to take baby steps it'll be very clear. The other one is I would say form lifelong partnerships and clients for life and I think that's something that very few do and um I try to cheer on their successes. So when I see somebody post that I know I always try and cheer them on because I think it's just such an amazing thing to see successes. And I probably I I would add a bonus one on this question of the key takeaways is I I am a I am a consultant. I'm paid to consult and what my clients tell me is that the most important thing I do for them is to tell them what they need to hear not what they want to hear. And that can create a lot of conflict that can create challenges that can create a lot of strife but I I believe that's my most important job is to tell them what they need to hear.

Vic 40:42

You know I had um when when we first set up Amplified group I went out to dinner with Paul Weefles from the Chasm group and Paul said you go through a journey with a client which is you know they love you to start with and then you get into the real nitty gritty with them and they you have to tell them all the things that they don't want to hear. So be really prepared for that and then they'll thank you for it eventually. Yeah be prepared to go through that.

Sam 41:07

I was referred to it as being allowed to call the baby ugly yeah because you weren't responsible for producing it.

SPEAKER_00 41:13

No not if the not if not if the baby's looking in the mirror yeah pretty horrible phrase but yeah anyway and you know and I think I think just to play on that one one final thing if we are headed towards a recession and I think we are in the United States maybe in the UK and maybe in Western Europe I I it's hard to know right now but you know in a recession um growth become growth may become scarce and so much of our business is focused on growth so how do we achieve success if growth is gone temporarily and I think that's really one of the questions. So what what I what one of the one of the things that we're doing with Partner Outlook is that we're trying to break apart the goal of growth and um build stepping stones to success. And in a recession customers want three things if we're headed into that number one is they want to save money. Number two they want to reduce risk and the third one is they want to make revenue more predictable. So what you can do in each of those buckets becomes crucial if you start talking about that now as we move towards if we are moving into a recessionary period that becomes sort of a red folder conversation and a red folder is that emergency plan that you've got prepared and and how to move forward. But understanding that I think is really critical. So I think we're in such an amazing market. It's so dynamic there's so many wonderful people like you two um that I've met over the years and it's just it's really a pleasure to be with you here today.

Sam 42:56

Thank you. Thank you very much. It's very kind of you to say so you know usually get compliments from our guests we do what a pleasure so we've only got one last question. I appreciate we we've uh racked up the time on this one your last question Denise is would you be so kind as to recommend a book for our listeners please oh there's one book I love um it's called um How Women Rise it's jointly written by Marshall Goldsmith Marshall wrote a book called What Got You Here Won't Get You There.

SPEAKER_00 43:30

So he's written two fabulous books but I love how women rise and it's not that I'm a feminist but I think it's important for women to understand that they are different, they think different they're wired different and their uh women face different kinds of roadblocks from men around the world. So women have some advantages in America versus other parts of the world in the UK you have some advantages versus other parts of the world. But women suffer from gender bias. There are some Difficulties in leadership because of it. And when women approach the top companies, they often run into roadblocks because they bring their background and their own strengths to bear. But this book really talks about identifying what these self-defeating behaviors are that can hold you back. And I think that's it's a great read for all women, and even for men to understand that men that manage women or work with women, it's especially if you're a manager, that's a really great thing to look at it. And then in the end, um, the most powerful thing that any person can do in their career is change what they can control. And that's really what this book is all about is helping you rise and understanding those things that may be limiting you that you do have control over. So I I love this book because of that.

Sam 44:50

Fantastic. Good advice. Good advice, thank you. Wow, we've covered some ground today, haven't we?

Vic 44:56

We really have.

Sam 44:57

Denise, I feel like we've taken up far more of your valuable time, but that was absolutely magnificent. Thank you. We really appreciate it. So it just remains for me to say thanks for listening to Get Amplified from the Amplified Group. As always, your comments and your subscriptions are gratefully received.