Angela McCourt 0:00
Let's get ready for some serious shift. This is a podcast shifting Inside Out hosted by your quantum shifter Angela McCourt, we are diving into ways to empower and enable a quantum shift. Inspiring topics hacks and guest speakers take us on a journey around authenticity, challenging status quo, personal power and living a purpose filled life.

I'm excited to have Vince Medicean On this episode, as we dive into his journey, which started out in sales, then became tech Exec. And along the journey realized how important partnerships were. And as he really started to figure out how to connect better with his customers, actually listening to them, and really building trust with them. He was really ahead of his time, because that has become such an important time. Now, in the world of business, and especially in the tech industry, where there are so many opportunities for ecosystem partnering. And what I love about where Vince's journey led him was his passion led him to founding, the ultimate partnerships and the podcast called Ultimate Guide to partnering. Can't wait for you to hear his journey. It's really awesome. And hopefully you're going to be able to pick up some tidbits that can help you in your own career. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode. As you listen, you can find me on LinkedIn at Angie belts McCourt, and Instagram at Angie underscore McCourt. So without further ado, let's hear from Vince.

Vince, welcome to shifting inside out. I am so grateful to have you on this episode. To get started. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself?

Vince Menzione 1:51
You Great to be here today. I am the host of The Ultimate Guide to partnering podcast and the CEO and founder of ultimate partnerships, an organization that helps leading technology organizations achieve their greatest results partner. So great to be here today.

Angela McCourt 2:09
Awesome. Thank you so much. So for the audience, just to kind of get to know you a little bit better. I have three questions for you that I would love to just happen to you a little bit here. The first one is what is your morning ritual?

Vince Menzione 2:24
I'm glad you asked that because it just recently changed. So it's always great. Like, I used to pop out of bed and you know, hit the coffee machine. But now I have I always I've been told that I should meditate for years now. And I never could quite get it right. And I tried many programs. And Dr. Michael Gervais, who has been a guest on my podcast three times has talked about meditation and mindfulness. But I just couldn't find the right program. And I found the right program just about a month and a half ago. And so now my morning start with I'm not even quite out of bed yet. And I do about a half hour meditation, and I do this amazing meditation. You and I both know this doctor, Dr. Joe Dispenza. And I spend the first half hour really like getting into a state that I've never gotten into before. By the way, it really helps me clear my mind for my intentions for the day. And then I pop out of bed and I have a morning routine where I have, I take an I take a green drink supplement. So I start my day off there. And I mix up this product, athletic greens, which is also a sponsor of my podcast. But I've been using the product for five years way before Athletic Greens became a sponsor. And I've been taking a green drink supplement for about 20 years now. So I think it's really made a difference in my health and well being so that's not necessarily this the plug for athletic greens, but it is something I believe in, wholeheartedly. And then I have my coffee and I kind of then then I kind of wake up and kind of think about my priorities for the day and look at my calendar. But then I then I've after I've had my coffee, then it's time to go exercise. So I a lot of days I get on my bike. I live down here in Jupiter, Florida. And I just love the climate that we live in. And I ride my bike to the beach, and I go generally for about a 10 mile ride. Or I ride to the gym, and I do a workout at the gym and then come back and then I stopped that I get in the shower and start my day. So that's sort of my ritual.

Angela McCourt 4:30
I love it. And I love that easing into the day, right? It's instead of grabbing the phone to start working email, it's I grabbed the phone to do my meditation. It's awesome. Yes,

Vince Menzione 4:40
it is made all the difference. It really is amazing.

Angela McCourt 4:43
And just real quick on meditation because we've talked I've talked about this a little bit on the podcast before but you know, meditation has been hard for a lot of people to kind of get into that routine. And I think just like you said you found what works for you. Like, it's hard for me to just to not have it anything go through my mind like to just not think of anything. But guided meditation for me is also very helpful. Like I really get into it, I can really feel it, I can really visualize, I can really connect with what's being said and what I'm kind of that process I'm going through versus just trying to, like, do it on my own. So I think you're right, like there's a you have to try different things to find what works for you. But that it is such a benefit. It is so helpful in such a such a huge, great opportunity, especially to start your day.

Vince Menzione 5:35
Well, quieting the mind, right. So I hadn't, I didn't know this up until maybe a few months ago. But like, we have 60 to 70,000 thoughts per day. I think about that, like all the noise that goes on up here. And so just even trying to get some of it out and quiet it a little bit. It's just it's been it's been a game changer for me.

Angela McCourt 5:57
Yes, yeah. And it also helps with, there's so many people right now focused on I need to be more present, I hear that a lot from clients, and even my team I need to be more present. And it's hard when your thoughts are all over the place to be present in a conversation instead of trying to think of what you want to respond with. Or what's your agenda versus truly listening to the other person, right. And meditation can absolutely help mindfulness activities can this can absolutely help on that path and that journey. So that's really awesome. Very happy for you that you found your your, your path,

Unknown Speaker 6:29
I'm so happy.

Angela McCourt 6:31
Can you tell? Yes, I can tell how do you renew your energy,

Vince Menzione 6:36
it comes back to a lot of the same thing. So during the day, like I get tired during it, just so much I probably shouldn't even drink coffee. But that's another conversation. I do go back and have a second helping of greens. I think that that helps like detoxify my body. And then I'll do a little bit of focus time, like I'll focus in maybe I have a I have a piece of board here where there's a list of some of my goals. And so I do spend a little reflective time to try and get me back centered on the day if the day has kind of gone off for me. And so breathing and taking in and just focusing back in again, going back to centers guess, I guess is what I would say?

Angela McCourt 7:18
That's awesome. Yeah. It's slowing down to really renew the energy to speed up like it is it is a real thing. It's a real thing. What is your guilty pleasure?

Vince Menzione 7:28
I love food. I I'll tell you a little bit more about my story, I'm sure as we talk here today, but you know, I grew up in an Italian family where food was the center of our lives and love was equated to good food. I tried to maintain a really healthy program and but then when I get a chance to have some, you know, carbohydrates, whether it be peace, pizza, or pasta, or you know, cookies over the holidays were around the house, my daughter wife prepared some cookies. And yeah, that's my pleasure.

Angela McCourt 8:05
Fantastic. And you shouldn't feel guilty about that.

Vince Menzione 8:10
Well, it depends on what you're putting in your body. It's the stuff that I love that makes me guilty.

Angela McCourt 8:19
Yeah, exactly. I love it. Okay, so I'm really excited to have you on. This is really, I think, a big opportunity for from a journey, sharing perspective, from a passion. You know, kind of finding your passion and following your passion perspective. And then also just from a journey of what you're focused on, which I think is just such a powerful timeliness of partnerships nowadays is like, that's what people are seeking. They're seeking deeper connection. They're seeking deeper partnerships. So I think as we get into this conversation, so such a timely one, and you've been yet focused in practicing on this for many years. It's awesome.

Vince Menzione 9:01
Yeah, it has been an amazing journey. And it started off I got a degree in Mark business and marketing. And I got to work for an organization I realized that salespeople were making the big money. So I decided I wanted to go down that path. And this was in the early days of wireless computing and help the company that was really early stage grow from 6 million to 125 million was the top sales person in the entire company for three straight years, forgot promoted. So I kind of grew with the company, it became VP of sales. And that was all direct selling. It was large enterprise selling. And then when the company got sold, finally, I followed one of the leaders to go do a turnaround. And in that organization, they asked me to go build a mark new market for the government. And we couldn't do that by ourselves. You need to contract you need to influence with government leaders and all those things. So I realized that I needed to go build a channel and build a partner ecosystem and strategy. So Oh, that I did that. Very, we were very successful growing that business, we had been spun out by Golden Gate capital that a company that had gone chapter 11. And Golden Gate, you know, was able to sell us within 26 months for 5x what they paid for the company. So it was a really great exit. Yeah, it was really amazing. And then I was recruited by Microsoft. So, you know, I go from smaller organizations into the mile, the amazing organization that Microsoft is, as you know, and I was I came in as an executive as the General Manager for US public sector partners strategy, which we had our own separate partner organization at the time, I had a pretty significant organization and $4.6 billion of business. And then I became part of the US over the over a period of time, it did the same job, which you don't normally do at Microsoft that did the same job for almost a decade. And but then my organization moved into the US organizations, I became part of the US partner leadership organization, got to build some really great relationships with the mazing people that I worked with the people at Microsoft is just outstanding. And then the, the company decided to make a change and reorg and offered me a job in Seattle, and my wife didn't want to move to Seattle. So I decided to take a package. And so I didn't know what I was going to do next, I thought it was gonna go work for another tech giant, you know, and I decided I didn't, I didn't like what I saw out there. And I started listening to podcasts. And there were at the time, six years ago, there was Tim Ferriss and a few others out there, but I really liked it. And somebody said to me, why don't you do a podcast, like you'd be really good at doing this. And so I was like, you know, I'm really good at partnering. I love partners I love and I realized that a lot of organizations struggle, especially working with the tech giants like Microsoft, I can help them. I can interview all my friends in the tech sector, and all these great friendships I've built over the years. So that's how Ultimate Guide to partnering started, focused a lot on Microsoft. But I've also expanded out to Salesforce and Google and some of the others. But I do have a lot of great relationships in the Microsoft ecosystem. And I've developed a lot of other great friendships over the years. And I invite all my friends to talk about, you know, what makes successful partnering? What are what do partners need to do to align to your organization, I kind of go across the entire business. And I've done some masterclass episodes where I really help technology organizations understand from left to right how to work across Microsoft, or Google and so on. And it's, it's my baby, it's my passion project. I love it. It's, it's what gives me juice. And that led to when I started doing it, rather than taking a tech job in another company, I was asked to speak at the Microsoft inspire conference, bunch of people started handing me their business cards saying, Can you come help us? I'm like, Yeah, I think I could do this at scale and help a lot of organizations. So ultimate partnerships ultimately was born and born out of that, out of that time.

Angela McCourt 13:07
That is fantastic. What a great story and journey that is so inspiring, because nowadays, a lot of people are feeling this yearning for what's my purpose, I am supposed to be doing something more, what else can I do, and even if they're doing a podcast, or if they're doing some kind of, you know, work outside of like, their day job, that they're setting themselves up for a lot of people were really starting to go down that path and to, to find that opportunity. And here you are, you've like established this huge business around it. And it started out with a passion project, and you know, speaking and so it's amazing how journeys can change and shift. And what would you say now looking back, like, you know, it's six years in so you're established, in my opinion, what would you say? Looking back, like, did you ever think you would be in this position you ever want to consult anyway, at least you know, what were some of the things that you're thinking about? Now looking back on, I went from the structure, corporate environment, to owning my own business, partnering out, you know, with all these people who used to be part and part of my company or part of my companies, you know, what do you think they're,

Vince Menzione 14:18
I think sometimes I wonder why I didn't do it sooner, right? You find your love of what you love to do, and being part of a big company, although it's, you know, it's glamorous at times to be an executive and a big company, and you know, they treat you really well and you get to travel and all those other things that you do with that company. You're limited in scope and what you can do every day and what you can impact right and I get to come in into organizations and you know, based on all these years now of experience, I get to help them pinpoint where the one or two or three areas that they need to focus in on to be successful are. And I'm not constrained by, you know, an operating budget or manager who's trying to help me out I gotta reach somebody else's goals or my goals. And so it's just a very different mindset around what I get to do every day. And then the opportunity with the podcast and some of the work we're doing, you know, we're trying to scale this now. And we're working on ultimate partnerships, mastermind, potentially a community that we're going to be bringing out, to be able to do that more at scale to help organizations and have a broader impact to me is even more exciting. Because it's not just one or two companies at a time or, you know, whatever I'm doing at that period of time, I'm able to reach a broader audience. And that's that, that excites me more than anything else, honestly.

Angela McCourt 15:37
Yeah. And I love the evolution that you're finding. And it's tying in so well, with what I call it about the timeliness, especially around your key focus area, which is around partnerships, is that there is this, like, underlying desire that people have for connection and deeper, meaningful connections. And so I translate that into the work you've been doing around partnerships, and how you're really helping organizations to establish very trusting, very bidirectional partnerships, not one way, which is the historical traditional way of, you know, business and how it works. It's like, oh, you're my partner, but I'm just gonna throw everything to you, instead of this two way, kind of bi directional, you know, relationship and trusting relationship. I find it like just perfect timing wise. So when you think about like the evolution that you're driving right now, what is fueled a lot of that are you seeing as well, on the other side, like this same desire from corporations and from other probably entrepreneurs as well,

Vince Menzione 16:42
I find that organizations still struggle. They have the right platitudes, they say the right things around partnerships. But many times when you go into these organizations at the C suite level, there is a, I started out, I had this set of operating principles about what makes successful partnership and it starts with mindset. And some of this, I learned because I got to work in the days when Satya first came on board, and we instituted mindset training. And Dr. Michael Gervais came into the organization and into the room. But I saw that on the other side working with some of these organizations, that they didn't have a growth mindset that they didn't have a partner led mindset or a partner first mindset. And they would say they were doing it, but they wouldn't make the right investments, they would still reward the bad behavior, right. So a lot of organizations and Microsoft doesn't have this. But a lot of the partners that Microsoft Works with, they have a direct sales model, they have a chief revenue officer who doesn't want to share leads, who doesn't trust Microsoft to go do co selling, or says that they're going to do it, but they don't do it. They're not fully in or fully on board. They're not fully committed. And I find that some of the origin, that's where I help a lot of these organizations understand that they've got to remove their own silos, they have to embed partner cross functionally across their organization. If they're going to be successful, I call that the private or victory, right, you got to get that right. First, you got to get your own house in order. And then you lock arms with another organization. And that's where trust enters the room. And two organizations can come together. And if you truly trust that mutual trust with one another, you can do amazing things, you can build a vision for what this sucks. And you see that right? You see that working in Microsoft, you see the partners that get it right, like I just had a guest on today. That's a top Microsoft partner. They understand how to do that intuitively. And there's trust in the room. And the trust is Microsoft trust them. Because they know that they're if Microsoft brings them into account, they are going to lead with Microsoft, there's this sense that they're going to do the right thing in the heart for the partnership and for the customer ultimately. So that needs to be established. But partners, like I said, I think people all have good intentions and they want to do the right thing. But it's so hard sometimes depending on the size of the organization to do the right thing across the whole business. Unless you put the right mindset, the right reward structure, the right resourcing at it in order to go do it right.

Angela McCourt 19:19
Now, go back to in your journey before Microsoft when you were when you were establishing yourself as a professional, successful sales person, what were your learnings back then about partnerships and obviously you gain that success so there was some something there formula wise that was very early on for you. That worked well what was what was that like for you?

Vince Menzione 19:49
So moving from enterprise selling in the first company, which was really a direct sales model. I even in that, but even in that model, we were a Canadian based company operating in the US market. And we were not the number one brand, I realized that I needed influence, I needed partners that I could, that influenced the same customer, like we didn't have, they didn't sell my product, but they have complementary software. And so I build a lot of those relationships first, even though I was directly selling, I realized, Hey, these are other organizations, if they're my friend, if we have a trusted relationship, and we can go in to see the same customer. And, you know, we can do, we could do great work together. So I recognize that then, when I went and did the built the channel for this second company, I recognize like, if I'm going to sell into this market, I have to find organizations that technology partners that have those trusted relationships with like in this case that we were selling into the government, right. So I remember one instance, we were trying to sell computers to the to the Air Force. And I went into a meeting with a bunch of colonels, like a whole group of like 40, or 50 colonels, and they were having some functional meeting. And they were all talking about this one organization. And I turned to my sales rep. So we need to get a meeting with that organization, they obviously respect and trust that organization. Next thing, you know, we're on a plane flying to Washington DC meeting with this organization, we developed a strong relationship with them, they became our trusted partner going into sell to the US Air Force, and we lit up the flight lines for all the air force bases all around the globe, essentially, having built that partnership, we did the same thing in the army. And I couldn't mention different markets and things. But by finding and building trusted relationships with organizations that have trusted relationships with customers, that also have the subject matter expertise, industry expertise, vertical expertise, to go deliver the right solution is super critical to success. And that's how we that's how I was able to do it in this direct selling model.

Angela McCourt 22:06
That's fantastic. And honestly, like, timeline wise, that was probably before the shift from pitching products and solutions to actually solving problems. And, you know, and understanding what the customer really needs, which is kind of the new way of selling over the past, you know, decade, let's say, yeah, that that was probably you were ahead of your time on that. And, and, you know, obviously probably a breath of fresh air for a lot of customers as well. You know, I think someone

Vince Menzione 22:35
Yeah, I was gonna say I had some really good training way back in the day, I don't even know if it's people know about this training was called Miller Heiman. Strategic selling was the name of the program. And really what it got, what it came down to, is really getting to understand the buying influences, what their personal motivations were for the decision process, and really understanding that and uncovering the needs, both the business needs and the personal needs, and bringing those together to make everybody you know, be successful and outcomes.

Angela McCourt 23:09
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, you know, a lot of companies now are starting to realize that that is so critical. And I would say the customers are demanding it as well. It's like, No, I don't want to talk to you, if you're gonna just come in to pitch stuff to me. And what, what, yeah, and what's interesting, you know, the whole, you know, listening for where the customer is at, what their priorities are, how they're focused, what their goals are, what, what they really want to and think that they can achieve and listening for the opportunities to partner from that point, and then working backwards towards a solution that works for them. Listening then becomes probably one of the core key skills in you know, really being able to have that conversation that's effective, and it has a true outcome that has impact for the customer.

Vince Menzione 24:02
You know, you remind me I was just asked yesterday, What books would you recommend? Partner could be partner books, this is somebody in the partner ecosystem was writing an article about it. And I said, you know, I'm kind of old school, but Stephen Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. There's so many great principles in there, but you reminded me of the one around, seek to understand and then be understood. And so many times we're just coming at it from our lens, like we want to be understood instead of seeking to understand.

Angela McCourt 24:38
Yeah, and that's the whole you know, when we talk about growth mindset, Microsoft has a huge focus around growth mindset. For instance, Curiosity is one of the best ways first of all, to go into a conversation and listen deeply because you're not worried about knowing the answer. You go in with hotline I mean, let me just listen and try to figure out, you know, what, is there a different opportunity here instead of going in assuming that you already know the answer? And when you think about like curiosity and how that, you know kind of evolves into going in and finding even a different solution than what you may have expected going in or assumed would come out of the conversation, or whatever it is, it's collaboration or whatnot, that it's really incredible. But the seeking to understand is a great way to put it. Curiosity is another form of of approach that a lot of I would say even companies are starting to embrace like that as a really important capacity. Not sure it's a skill that kind of fits in between capacity and skill. But yeah, it's awesome.

Vince Menzione 25:48
I'm a, I'm a naturally curious person. I'm the person who in the middle of watching the movie will go on and Wikipedia, and find out about the the actor or the city or whatever it might be like, I want to kind of interrupt myself watching a movie to find out like, what is it? Like? What did that? What's that person's background? And what's the background story and all these things that I'm watching? So

Angela McCourt 26:12
yeah, that's fantastic. So when you go and work with clients today, and you are, and you don't need to give like details, if you don't want but if you're going in, and you're really trying to help them make this shift in this change, like, what is the ultimate goal that they want to do? Versus that they're able to do? Like, are they equal? Or is there still a lot of culture and operational and business model shift that has to happen to be able to truly support having the right kind of ultimate partnerships?

Vince Menzione 26:51
You know, every every situation organization is a little bit different. But I'll reference one I'm thinking about right now that's going on. And one of them is where, like, we have relationships with Microsoft, as an example, we think we're supposed to be doing this thing around co selling. But we also have this channel over here that sells our product. We haven't we haven't connected the dots between internally within our own organization, like the two organizations don't talk to one another. And so you know, internal, I gotta go back to the internal conflict, right? Before we even get to the like, how do you work with Microsoft more effectively, or whoever it might be? But getting your own house in water, and bringing down the silos in your own organization, just so it happens so often, that organizations just don't have that line? aligned? Right? internally?

Angela McCourt 27:43
Yeah, and it's, it is it is to me, too, it seems like a bit of a skills and capacities focus as well. So you've got like the alignment, you've got the from a leadership perspective you have from a priorities perspective you have from a cultural business model all of those pieces, but then you've got the whole skills and capacities gap, that you're seeing the gaps, like, what what should we be focusing on, that helps us to uplevel and upskill, where we're at,

Vince Menzione 28:15
you know, one of the things I find is, within organizations, as people just don't, again, maybe it's compensation driven, maybe it's just mindset driven. Maybe it's just I don't, I didn't, I don't know how to do it yet. But people don't look left or right. And whether they're looking in their own organization, or they're looking at their partner to go figure out how to be successful partnering. They look at the very specific set of objectives, I gotta hit a quota, I gotta do this and that, and they're not thinking outside the box. And I think about some examples where, you know, Microsoft talks about partner to partner often, like, that's a big term within the Microsoft ecosystem. Like if I can't get here, if I can't get from point A to point B on my own, can I go build a partner, can I get another organization to go help me get where I need to get to to be six ultimately successful, whether it's closing a transaction or making a customer happy. And I find that that's a gap. It's a gap, even at Microsoft with helping to partners come together. And I think it's a skill that still needs to be developed, like people understanding like to bring organizations together to solve for a customer problem. And it's also a skill gap on the other side within the Microsoft partner ecosystem, where an organization whether it's trust, whether it's just they don't know they can do it or they don't understand or that they're not resourceful. I think resourcefulness is probably the word I would use. To say people need to get more resourceful in terms of solving the business outcomes, and bringing understanding again, if you understand the customer's requirements, the customer is going to tell you I need I don't need just what you do. I need what you do and what the other company does, or I need both of these things to come together. So being resourceful and bringing that together, which ultimately leads to a partnership is a gap. And it's an area where people need to be focused from a mindfulness perspective, from the way they think about business outcomes, and how they execute against those.

Angela McCourt 30:16
And it even goes back to, you know, your first experiences, and really building partnerships, which is, find the partners that are trustworthy, that have the capacity capabilities and whatnot, that you can partner with, to go and build this other partnership and a very interesting way. Yeah, it's, it's really interesting. I, I feel like a lot of what I've seen over the years is this almost like competitive motion, where we're competing with each other, so much so that we alienate ourselves. And, you know, it always seems to be the me show versus the US show. And, and being able to partner and work together and, you know, build off of each other's you know, strengths, as well as you know, opportunities for finding that creativity, or for building that trust, like, teaming up with others, finding that resourcefulness, not just within yourself, but within the people around you. And partnering in that way, is such a different motion. But it's so impactful. It's huge. And I even you know, I talked about this in my book, about collaboration, the old way of collaboration was still very hierarchical, it was still very agenda based and agenda driven. And it wasn't true and truly inclusive, and it wasn't truly open to new possibilities. It was, I just need to pull this team together so we can get this done. I already know the outcome that I want.

Unknown Speaker 31:48
Instead of trying to see what's possible, right? I'm going to pull these experts in the room, but I'm not going to actually use them.

Vince Menzione 31:54
Yeah, no diversity of thought, right? Yes, exactly.

Angela McCourt 31:57
So I so when I think about like the two, so using your resources around you, and not just competing with everybody and everything around you, this new way of collaborating this opportunity to come together in a very inclusive and open in a safe space, that is not driven by an agenda that is not hierarchical, meaning a leader is putting the team together. So then the leader has all the power. This this kind of new shift could help open up, I think people to be able to say, I trust having this partner with me this this other resource to help me accomplish this overall goal with this particular customer or whatnot. You know, I think that there's there's this opportunity to make these shifts just through how we maybe engage with each other, open ourselves up to each other. Look at what it means to do that in a different way.

Vince Menzione 32:50
Yeah, open yourself up to the possibilities. Yeah, that's what I would say. Yeah, I love that.

Angela McCourt 32:57
Yeah, that's, that's my vision. Well, so when you when you think about how our listeners could, let's say, take, take some of this approach, right, using your resources, you know, partnering with others, finding, finding that partner that, you know, the trust is there, and that together, you can then actually make a huge impact with the customer. Taking that partnership concept. And now just based on what we were just saying, turning it internally. So a lot of our conversation has been based on external customers. But there's this internal factor that I think you probably run into a lot this whole, get your stuff together. But how does that happen? How can people start to trust each other more? How can people start to build partnerships internally in a deeper and more connected way?

Vince Menzione 33:55
It's a really good question. Because when we do talk about trust, we tend to think about the other side of the table, right? The external trust, mutual trust, but trust needs to be on both sides, and trust. And that's one of the things with partnerships in a lot of organizations. There's not trust for the partner organization. There's not trust in the plan, the business plan or trust that the fact that the team is impacting the business in the right way. Like I always talked about the heroic salesperson, the salesperson who rang the bell, and we got the sale. But there were 30 people behind that. Well, firstly, helping to sell that so. So I think one of the things is that comes down to attribution internally. So the things you need to do is you need to have good systems and tools to allow the leadership and the organization as a whole. To see that. Yes. In fact, partners helped impact that they influence the sale they delivered against the sale, they might have transacted the sale they did all the different parts of the partner journey. or one of the parts, and that the people in the partner chairs that people that are part of the partner organization, if it's a separate organization or partner roles in an organization, are actually helping the company achieve its objectives. So demonstrating the value of partnerships to the leadership to the seat to the chief revenue officer to the chief marketing officers. In fact, you know, it's a, it's a less expensive call, total acquisition cost to go partner versus trying to do everything direct. And demonstrating that, and having the tools and systems to do that is so important. So we're getting better at it. Organizations have struggled here for years, but the systems and tools are happening. Microsoft's got some great systems and tools now with partner center and some of the other internal tools. Other organizations are getting access to some of these tools as well.

Angela McCourt 35:53
Yeah, that's fantastic. So if you could give a billboard thence, like, either top tip for partnerships or career journeys, what would that be? I'm gonna put on a billboard.

Vince Menzione 36:14
I have a personal philosophy. I don't know if it's the same as what I would share with others. But I would say be bold. I don't think we're bold enough. Share your vision of the universe with others. I think we all have a unique perspective. And I think we all have something to offer and leave a legacy. I think we need to go back to Stephen Covey begin with the end in mind. Like think about what that's going to be like, like, what's your life purpose? What what are you here for? We each have a unique purpose in this life. And so what's that legacy going to be for you? Like, think think with the end in mind? So be bold. And, you know, people share your vision and leave a legacy.

Angela McCourt 37:02
That's what I would say. antastic thank you for that. What a great job. My job as perfect. Okay, now, would you like to share, either you already shared a couple of books, which I will put those in the show notes as well. Any other like, organizations, nonprofits that you'd like to call out any products? Your company website, those would be great too. And, and I can add them in in the show notes?

Vince Menzione 37:28
Well, I would love people to come to the podcast, its ultimate guide to partnering, ultimate guide to partnering at Ultimate Guide to partnering.com on Apple, Spotify, Google, you know, all the all the various podcasting platforms, ultimate guide to partnering or ultimate partnerships is our website. And, you know, other great books. Boy, there's, there's quite a few it would be, I'd be hard to just narrow in on one or two. I will share the I think we we both talked about Dr. Joe Dispenza. I think the work that he's doing is admirable. And if anybody wants to go look him up at Dr. Joe dispenza.com. He's doing some really great work right now.

Angela McCourt 38:10
Yes, he is. Love him. Awesome. Okay, thank you so much, Vince. It's been really, really big pleasure to have you on the podcast, very insightful conversation. And I think too, I love the blend of the personal journey with the professional journey and just how these things kind of meshed together, which was really awesome. And if you liked this episode, you can DM me on LinkedIn. If you really want to say thank you, please leave a review on Apple podcasts. Thanks for listening.

Unknown Speaker 38:38
Thank you, Angie.