54: Using AI to Drive Partnerships - Jessica Baker

Can AI help partners grow and scale partnerships? Jessica Baker, Chief Program Officer for AchieveUnite, thinks so.

Jessica says that AI can help hypercustomize partner relationships at scale. She says AI will help get more done—faster and at higher quality.

Jessica, Will, and Ben discuss the key benefits of AI, including hyper-relevant partner marketing assets, predictive partner profiling, automated funnel management, and enhanced PRM platforms.

Jessica shares real-world examples of AI in action from her work advising major tech companies on their channel programs. She explains how AI builds on human connections and trust.

Instead of taking away jobs, Jessica says that AI will enhance and augment partner professional's jobs.

Highlights from the show:

00:48 Can Ben finally bench 225?
01:39 Intro to Jessica Baker
03:04 The benefits of AI
04:22 AI will change everything about how we do business with partners
04:29 What do most people get wrong about AI
06:56 AI helps augment and improve your work
08:51 Can AI build trust?
09:35 Trust isn't built by AI; people build it
17:18 Key areas where AI can be used in partnerships
17:59 Funnel management becomes easier with AI
18:41 AI improves business insights
20:45 AI improves customer service
21:59 Top AI tools for partners
24:44 Tactical takeaway that everyone should implement tomorrow

Transcript

Will Taylor: 0:04

Howdy partners, and welcome to another episode of the Howdy Partners podcast, where we give you tactical insights so that you can execute in partnerships. Today we are joined with someone who we're going to talk about AI with, but before we introduce our guest, Ben, how's it been? You are traveling. You're a worldly man. You're going around How's, how's things? How's business?

Ben Wright: 0:27

Good mate. Finally, finally back in Utah after, I think, you know, two weeks in Australia and then a then a week in the uk. So definitely getting my, uh, my air miles in, uh, my body clock's finally kind of reset and got back to normal. So yeah, happy to be, happy to be back in Utah and, and it's beautiful here at the moment. Not too hot. Lovely kind of autumn weather, so yeah, enjoying being back for sure.

Will Taylor: 0:48

Nice. And my one question for you, Ben, is can you bench 2 25 yet?

Ben Wright: 0:54

Um, no So for, for, for, for our guests who, who's gonna introduce herself in a moment? Um, I had a number of kind of New Year's resolutions as you do, um, one being a, a bench press call and I'm, I'm about like between two 15 and two 20, so I've, I've kind of done. It's done fairly well, I would say, but not quite hit, hit my goal. So the answer to that is unfortunately no, but, we'll, we'll keep going. There's a few more, few more months left. You never know.

Will Taylor: 1:18

That's right. I believe in you. That's why I'm checking in. I'm like, he can do it. Uh, I'm, I'm rooting for you

Ben Wright: 1:23

yeah.

Will Taylor: 1:24

Um, so today we are joined by Jessica Baker from Achieve Unite. And we're going to be talking about Out AI and the AI driven channel. Jessica, introduce yourself. What do you do? Tell us about your experience. Tell us more about Jessica.

Jessica Baker: 1:39

Hi. Hi Will. Hi Ben. Thanks for having me on, uh, on the podcast. My name's Jessica Baker. I'm the Chief Program officer for Achieve Unite. Achieve Unite is a channel success company, so we Work with companies, mostly high high tech companies in advisory services, in development, and also engagement programs with partners. We work with predominantly high tech companies. A lot of the household names that you would know. I think, you know, Cisco and Verizon all the way down to sort of series B startup companies and everything in between. So our practice is made up of mostly, uh, people who have been in the business for a while. So thank X practitioners. We've all got a lot of, um, wisdom that we love to share with our clients and take everything with, uh, real practicality and reality instead of, uh, Theory so that things have a lot of, a lot of value in what we help our clients with. So,

Will Taylor: 2:42

I love it. Practicality over theory. That's what we're all about. On the Howdy Partners Podcast. We aim to get those tactical insights. So you're the perfect person for this. And today, like I said, we're talking about AI and I want to get your bold statement on ai. You know, I. How to run programs successfully. So are you for or against ai and why?

Jessica Baker: 3:05

Oh, I am definitely for ai. Uh, and the AI that, you know, when it came onto the scene, I think earlier this year with Gusto, was that generative ai. And I think that that has a lot of power to change the way that we work with partners and add a lot of value. It, it has a way of making things hyper relevant and In any sort of engagement with partners, any partner or any person at a partner that you're working with, the more relevant you can make that content, the more it's gonna stick with them and the more that they're gonna be open to receiving that message. And so I think that's just one way that generative ai, but there's also lots of other ways we can use AI in just how we run our business and how we get smarter about running our business. And I think that is for me, as a You know, a a channel program practitioner, that's the thing that I'm really interested in because I sat in that seat for many years and I think, wow, if I had this tool and I could cut through the noise and I could get to the heart, and I think AI has that ability to really work some magic with the people that run the business end of partners and channels. So definitely for it, I think it will change the way that we do everything with partners in the future.

Will Taylor: 4:31

And so what do you think most are getting wrong about ai? You know, there's, there's, I feel like there's a good blend of positive and negative views about it, but what do you think most people are are getting wrong when they're thinking about, how do I use AI for my role in my day-to-day? What are, what's, what are they getting wrong out there? I.

Jessica Baker: 4:50

So in the conversations that I have with people, when I say AI, to most anybody now, they immediately think like chat, G P T, and they can't quite. Make that link between, you know, I'm gonna chat, put in a, a chat prompt and that's going to help me run my channels. Like, how is that even possible? And, and then you have a lot of people who are fearful that AI is going to take over my job, right? I'm gonna lose my job, or I'm going to lose my value that I bring to this organization, or something like that. So I think a lot of people I don't know where to begin, and I think they're afraid of it. And then you have others that I've met along the way that are like all in and they're, they're using not just chat g p T, but they're using Claude and they're using, um, journey and, and all these other things to, to help them sort of work better with partners. There's A lot. So we, we've uh, just did a podcast, uh, not a podcast, a linked LinkedIn live series, and we had Mind Matrix and we had, um, uh, structured web on there. And they're doing a lot of things with marketing, with partners. So, you know, being able to take that core message from, from corporate. And not just partner it, but hyper partner it and make it super relevant to that partner's audience or that partner's, um, you know, their individual, uh, value prop can be put into that messaging very seamlessly. And then they get a, a useful product that. It's only theirs. It's not gonna be copied by other partners. So there's some personalization there that that works really well in partner marketing. And so what are people getting wrong? I think they're just not giving it a chance and not really seeing all of the ways that AI can add value to how you're running your partners today.

Ben Wright: 6:57

Yeah, it, it's interesting because I think, um, We can probably dig into it. I, I'm a massive proponent of ai and you mentioned one area of, of partnerships, which is partner marketing, where I actually think there's, there's always too much to do regardless of the channel program you're in, regardless of the partner program you have. I always kind of bucket partner marketing really into two buckets. The first is, Brand new partner program, which means your head of partnerships is also your head of partner marketing and you're borrowing from your direct marketing team. And there's a ton of issues with with that process in general. And so you think about generative AI in that, you know that aspect, it makes sure deliverables a lot better. It makes'em happen a lot quicker. And then the second bucket, now you've got a robust or mature partner program. You've got a partner marketing team. They've always got too much to do. And so I think on both Use cases. Um, partner marketing is the one area that gets me really excited for the, for the future of, um, for the future of ai, um, in partnerships. And there's, there's other people developing products I know around, you know, the, the p r m ecosystem to, to create, you know, really high quality assets. And I think we've only just tried, you know, touched the, the tip of the iceberg. But I would agree with you, Jessica, and what you just said. I think partner marketing is the place that I get most excited about. But will, to your point, The, the interesting piece to think about is like we we're in a world where there's a lot of anti sentiment is what I would call it, towards ai. And so I also think that's potentially one of the things that's stopping people from really diving in and using the tool. Uh, Jessica mentioned, oh, it's gonna take my job, right? So as, as a partner market, if you are, if you are now using generative AI for all of your deliverables, Does that make you redundant in your role? Right. And so there is that kind of, that kind of edge or that mix that I think you have to, to, to consider. Um, but in general, like I said, huge proponent. But that's another thing that I would just call out as a potential issue with the use of generative AI in in, in partnerships.

Will Taylor: 8:51

So at the core of the partnership's interaction, uh, trust is very important. And when I think of ai, I think the case for the partner marketing use cases is pretty straightforward. You know, you can blend joint value together more easily. You can create content more easily. Um, but what about the other side of partner recruitment? Partner management? Where do you think AI falls in there and how can partner pros think about AI that supplements all of those things versus replace all of those things? Because I think there's a bit of a worry of removing that personalization and that relationship aspect, but what are your thoughts on how AI can help support that kind of function in partnerships?

Jessica Baker: 9:36

So you said my most favorite word when it comes to partnerships, which is trust. Um, there's, trust is the foundation of everything that we do with partners. And adding that layer of ai, I think even amplifies the, the need for having that complete trust with partners because, Partners are going to have to trust that you are giving them their best, um, version of whatever it is that you can give to them. Partners are going to have to trust in whatever sort of models you create to give value to them and trust is, um, By individuals and organizations, it's not gonna be built by ai. AI is a tool that organization and individuals are going to use. Let me just take a little tangent here on trust because, uh, a few years ago at Achieve Unite, we did a bunch of research about how people form trusted relationships. So we recognize that, you know, that foundational element has got to be trust and your ability to form trusted relationships with people is really, uh, an imperative when You're in this position of working for a company, but trying to really work with all of these different partners, right? So you have to be a very trustworthy person, and your ability to make those trusting relationships as quickly as possible, um, becomes a, a real, almost like competitive, um, element to, to your game, right? Uh, we did all this research with Arizona State University and Notre Dame. Believe it or not, there are professors who are professors and trust. That's all that they, they think about, and we did some global research with them and we came up with a model that we call P Q I. So if you think EQ and iq, right? This is pq, your partner in quotient. So how you build trust with people, and this is one of the foundations that we have at Achieve, and we use this model to allow people to understand how they build trust with people. There are five different ways, right? We, we talk about AI in the lens of you have to be able to build these trusted relationships. And if you know how a, how you build trusted relationships, like what your personal, um, you know, um, way is that you best build these relationships and b you know how to use your resources. If they're AI enabled, then you've got a real golden ticket there. To be able to drive these relationships and give real value to partners because there's also some things that are forcing, uh, in the marketplace today. Two things. One, vendors are doubling down on partners. Uh, instead of like casting this really wide net and being proud of, I have 20,000 partners, you know. But How many actually do business with you? Oh, well, you know, 150. Okay. So you really only have 150 partners. Right. And partners are doing the same thing. I, I have a hundred Part a hundred vendors on my line card. Well, how many do you actually do business with? Well, maybe five. Right? So they're, they're really segmenting and getting hyper-focused on how we can bring the most value to each other. And if you can have those things happen while you have these amazing, trusted relationships, and you have something that's AI driven to allow you to give even more value to that relationship, to me that's The sweet spot. To me that's nirvana.

Ben Wright: 13:33

it, it's, it's, um, it's really topical and I, I love that you, the way that you kind of introduced that because, um, I had a conversation with Allbound, A P R M solution, and their main focus this year is partner experience, which is, instead of it just being like a P R M being in this system that just basically has bits and pieces that you need to run a partner program, how do you create the best partner experience possible? And as we start to dig into that, you think about all the data that PRMs have, right? And the way that AI can read through that data and start to pull out targets and. Who your best partners are and start to start to actually produce a better partner experience based on that data. And I think that's the other layer. Well to your point, like where else can they use, where else could AI be used in partner programs? That gets me really excited is the fact that the, we have these partner tech companies that have so much data, but how can we pull out those, pull out the use AI to pull out those data points and actually produce a really good partner experience. So yeah. Plus one on what? On what Jessica just said. For sure.

Jessica Baker: 14:31

I'll tell you, I have worked with a lot of companies over the last eight years and I can't name one that has A clean data set that we've started to work with, right? Uh, no offense to all of the big companies out there. I mean, it happens. You, you know, somebody spins up a data set here or there, you buy a company and you're trying to merge things like, it's crazy. But data is huge. Like you remember a few years ago, it was like, data is the new oil. Okay, great. Yes, data is the new oil, but it, it's not A way that we can use it and have it draw conclusions based off of the different data sets and the behavior. And I think putting an AI wrapper, Around a data strategy is huge, not just only in segmentation, but think about, um, any other kind of partner insights and funnel management and, you know, hey, you know, you are, you have this opportunity in our funnel and the, the five others that you've closed have also had this part in it or have really benefited from this piece of content. Or, you know, something You, you get to all of a sudden be really smart about how you're doing it and not just, not just guessing or not just having a gut feel, but having some real data-driven decisions behind why you do things and, and the data to back it up, right? And so having Having an AI driven data strategy, I think that to me is like the first step that an organization can take if they're really serious about using AI and driving a partner experience using ai.

Will Taylor: 16:20

I completely agree and yeah, I've noticed myself talking more and more about the data of partnerships and, you know, if people are getting laid off then well, they probably didn't have the data to back up why they should continue, you know, building the partner program. And so I'm curious around. Um, okay. Let's say I'm bought in, I want to use AI and I'm in partnerships. What have you done or seen in the wild with clients that you work with when it comes to leveraging AI in partnerships? And specifically, what functions can it be used for? You know, we talked about content creation, partner marketing, you know, the data side. Let's go through, you know, what are those 3, 4, 5, however many functions there are that we can use AI in. What are your thoughts on. How it can be deployed and then we'll dive into, you know, what people can do to actually deploy it. But what are those key areas that AI can be used in the realm of partnerships? What are your thoughts?

Jessica Baker: 17:18

So the first one of the obvious one we've talked about is partner marketing. All right, so there's, there's your first one. Um, your second one has to do with any kind of partner profiling. So, If we have the ability to not only understand what a partner does with us, but who they are as a partner, where, where their other successes are. Um, a lot of those other leading indicators, like we always measure the lagging indicators. Everybody's always talking about the revenue that came in or You know, the rates that things are renewed or whatever. But there's a lot of leading indicators that I think AI will help us get our, our arms around to really be able to predict success. So partner profiling is a huge piece. Um, there's that whole funnel management, lead management. You know, you've got this deal in, we suggest that, you know, you do this because of this. Right? So, um, we can start to predict how things will happen. We can start to predict what partners will do best with certain types of leads. If you're in an organization that's sharing leads with partners, what is the best partner for this, for this end user and for this type of lead? And, and I think there's some automation that can go along with there. To be able to make that a much better practice so we're not just, you know, spraying and praying, but we're being very precise in what we do. Very deliberate in what we do. I think. Um, any other kind of, Business insights for partners, helping partners optimize their own customer success experience, analyzing customer behavior, demographics, purchasing history to to be able to give a complete picture of their customers. So again, you're not just using AI for how you're running the business, but you're extending that sort of insight so that your partners can take advantage of it as well. Um, I think the p r M platforms that are out there will completely be shaken up by AI because now all of a sudden, instead of just a username and a password, you're a person with an identity and a profile, and we know what you're about and we know that you have these, these things in the funnel. We know that you've been in You know, in, in this training or you've attended this event, or you know, your customers typically do this, and so that engagement at the digital level would become even that much more precise and relevant to whoever's logging in to do anything, right? Talking about a data strategy, I think that's going to be very important so that we can start bringing all of these siloed databases together. And putting it all into some sort of AI engine so that we can get real business insights and metrics out of all of these different databases that were so different. Before it was very hard to get anything out of them. I don't know if I'm at five or not, but I think then partner experience is a another one. Um, you know, anytime we talked about, you know, person and, and of course there's a personal. Touch that needs to happen. But business doesn't always happen in that nine to five, you know, in your time zone slot. And a lot of the value proposition for PRMs are that they can be self-serving with partners so that they're open 24 7. And I don't know if you've ever used a chat bot before Uh, I get extremely frustrated with chat bots because I don't think that they're smart at all. I'm hoping that we get some real chat bots that actually can answer the questions that you're answering with real data, not just canned responses. Right. Being able to be that interface between, you know, everything that we know in, in this big pool of running your partnership with us. And I can now answer that question, knowing everything that I know about my company and about you as a partner and you as an individual. I can bring some real relevancy to that. So that customer success, that partner experience, I think that gets elevated quite a bit. I think that was more than five

Will Taylor: 21:39

Uh, that's good. We need, uh, as much context as possible for where a AI can be, um, layered in. And so, um, rapid fire, what are the top AI tools that you're thinking of when you're thinking about these platforms? And Ben, feel free to jump in'cause I know that you have your hands on AI as well. What are some of the tools that people can start thinking about?

Jessica Baker: 22:00

I, I think the, the one that's most widely available now are, are any of the, you know, chat, g p t, generative, you know, let me ask a query and get a result back thing, right? Um, chat, G p T. Anybody can do that, right? You can also get into. Um, any of Microsoft's offerings or Google's offerings? Um, I know people who like Claude. Um, I tend to, when I'm doing things and I'm asking questions or I'm looking for content, I, I, I now do Claude and Chat g p t side by side and I see what they come up with. And sometimes it's similar. Um, But sometimes there's a clear winner, especially in, in terms of content that I'm looking for, or tone that I'm looking for. Uh, if you are at all hesitant of getting into the AI game, I. Start with one of those two. It's super easy. It's free. Get in there and um, and, and, and, and try it out. Just you as a person, if you as a business are looking to get in, start to look at the vendors that are out there right now because people are starting to come out with really neat things. There are some offerings right now on that partner marketing side. So use that as a way to be able to start this journey with your partners, uh, in the AI driven channel on that side.'cause I think those are the ones that are coming first to the market. I.

Ben Wright: 23:34

Yeah, I think, I think from my angle again, um, depends how Uh, advanced you are with the use of ai, but um, again, chat GPT four. Pretty great worthwhile paying for a subscription for that. It's not expensive. Um, there's a tool I've been trying out mainly for copy and content, which feeds into the, the partner marketing piece called Write. So, which is really interesting. You can do a whole bunch of stuff, um, whole bunch of stuff using that tool. And then additionally, like for anybody that's out there as a software engineer, The APIs that you can connect into that are relatively inexpensive if you want to go out and build your own tool, it's, it's easy to do at the moment, I would say easier than ever before to build your own, your own software solution, which is, which is crazy and, and kind of cool at the.

Will Taylor: 24:17

Yeah. Very cool. So Jessica, we leave our audience with one tactical takeaway. Uh, they loved everything that you just said, but what is that one thing that they can implement tomorrow? Um, when they start thinking about implementing ai, what is it? Is it, you know, I get the tool and I start typing stuff in, or, you know, do I map out the program and where it can fit in? What's your take on that tactical takeaway that everyone should implement tomorrow?

Jessica Baker: 24:45

Tomorrow you, if you don't already, you need to go try out one of these content generators. One of these Generative AI models, that's what you need to do first and second. You need to take some steps towards establishing an even deeper level of trust with these partners so that when you actually present them with something AI, that they're interested in hearing what you have to say.

Will Taylor: 25:13

I love it. Short and sweet. You know, get some practice so that you know, when you do approach your partners, you got something to talk about. And then of course, make sure the relationship is there. I love it. We will leave it there. Jessica, thank you so much for your wisdom and thank you everyone. That was another episode of the Howdy Partners podcast.