57: Managing Chaos in Partnership Programs - Negar Nikaeein

Time management is critical when it comes to managing multiple partnerships.

In this episode of the Howdy Partners podcast, Negar Nikaeein joins Will Taylor to discuss time management for partner professionals. They explore strategies and best practices for setting priorities, organizing tasks, and driving revenue in partner programs.

And Negar shares her #1 tip for managing the Sunday Scaries.

Tune in to learn tactical strategies to manage your partnerships more effectively.

Highlights:
01:49 Intro
04:25 How do you go from zero to one?
05:38 Time management practices
10:35 What to do when chaos strikes?
19:53 What is the number 1 thing partners can do to manage time?

Transcript

Will Taylor: 0:05

Howdy partners and welcome to another episode of the Howdy Partners podcast, where we give you tactical insights so that you can execute and of course generate revenue for your partnerships program. Today I am joined with someone I have done partnerships with, which is fantastic, and I am flying solo today for this episode from a host perspective as well. But that's okay because we already have Great rapport with the guest, Nagar from Partners Stack. Great to have you, and also welcome to my home. You're in my office right now, recording, and that this is the first for the, the podcast. So, that is, that's very exciting. So, the background you see is actually my, my Office, but Nagar great to, great to have, have you, how are you doing today?

Negar Nikaeein: 0:52

Good. Thank you for having me both in your home as well as the podcast. I definitely thought we would be in the same room together when I made the suggestion, but definitely just happy to be here. And yet we've worked together a lot lately, so I think we've got the banter down pat, and now we can kind of share some of the stuff that we've done together and all of our learnings.

Will Taylor: 1:16

Heck yeah. And today we are talking about billing, being the Jill and Jack of all trades because that is exactly what all partner people must do. And specifically what we will be talking about is some of the do's and don'ts. And also I. The best way to manage time in the chaos that is doing partnerships because you're pulled every which way. You have your hands in everything, and it can be a challenge. So, tell me more about yourself and your experience in partnerships. Where do you work? What do you do, and how long have you been doing it?

Negar Nikaeein: 1:50

Sounds good. Well, whenever people ask me about my experience, I always say like, I'm all over the map. I. I, in the past I worked for a nonprofit and actually I always knew I wanted to get into partnerships when I was doing B D R work. That path of being like a little bit more strategic with specific accounts versus a little bit more of that transactional relationship that an account executive might have, I. That was always very appealing to me. So I took my first plunge at an EdTech nonprofit doing more distribution partnerships, trying to identify how do we get as many viewers and traffic as possible to the website. And we had a lot of different strategies there. Then I was able to make the switch back into the for-profit space working for Partner Stack. So I've been there for almost two and a half years now. In March it will be three years. And that has been a really great opportunity again, to kind of like get my hands into a lot of different types of partnerships. So when people ask like, what do you focus on? And like I've worked with agencies, large agencies, small agencies, consultants you know, affiliates as well as tech partners who we just launched in January for the first time January, 2023. Actually the first tech partner was with Reveal. So it's been definitely a really interesting journey, which is why I call myself kind of like a Jack or Jill of all trades'cause I do it all.

Will Taylor: 3:28

Very cool. So diverse range of experience across multiple different partner types, so You've had exposure in the partner world, and it's interesting that you wanted to get into partnerships. I feel like a lot of partner people, they just kind of fall into it. They're just, you know, a salesperson and then sell with a partner and then they're like, oh, okay, maybe I'll do more of this. Or for me, I just, it was, I. The opportunity. I wanted to do enablement and the partner piece was just kind of this nice, nice to have at the time. So that, that's awesome. And so give it to us real here. What's going on in the partner persons world? You know, you've again, gone across multiple different types of partnerships. What are They doing over and over again. And then of course that'll set, set us up nicely for our topic for today. But what is going on in the partner persons world? And let's try and drive some like empathy for, for the audience. Like, like, let them feel heard, tell them what they're experiencing and what you've experienced.

Negar Nikaeein: 4:26

Yeah, I think a lot of partner people that I speak to do have their hands in a lot of different buckets or they don't have a ton of resources, and so they're trying to figure out like, Hey, there's all this opportunity. How do I do it? And how do I get from zero to one or from one to 100? I think a piece of that is like identifying, you know, what your process needs to look like and setting up a really solid foundation of what needs to get done and being organized. The other piece of it is a lot of partner professionals. Are tasked with driving revenue so that revenue, you know, isn't the easiest thing to drive when you're first, you know, in the first six months maybe, of a brand new partnership and you're still trying to drive value to one another. And so I think these are kind of like, two of the conversations I seem to have the most is how do you set up your day? How do you set up your time? And then how are you driving revenue and, and what are the Methods that you're using to kind of get to that point to show the organization that these are worthwhile partnerships to pursue.

Will Taylor: 5:38

Amazing. So what are some of the core practices that you have to manage your time in the best way possible? Give us, you know, two or three practices where you're like, when things start to get a bit overwhelming, I go back to this and I do these things to make sure that I am. Leading towards revenue and I am focusing on the right things. What are those two to three core strategies that you focus on?

Negar Nikaeein: 6:04

I think naturally I'm a scatterbrain and like I hold everything in my brain, so getting things from my brain onto paper. Is like the number one way that I kind of feel like I have a grasp over the million balls that might be in the air at, at any given time. So one thing that I do every single Friday I learned this actually from like a life career coach. She hosts these challenges maybe like once a quarter or twice a year. And I learned this from one of her challenges. A piece of it was about your career and your life at work, and. Getting rid of the Sunday scaries. So you start by getting rid of those Sunday scaries on Friday, and you do that by do blocking out, let's say like an hour of your time on a Friday for your Friday checklist. And this time is spent going through like, what have I done over the, the week? What are emails that I still haven't sent out? What are the calls that I had? How did they end up. Kind of assessing, like, did I leave anything up in the air still, or is everything accomplished? So that gets me through knowing that I've closed out my week or can close out my week on a positive tone. Then you go through your calendar for next week so that when I'm coming in on Monday, I actually know everything that my week probably is gonna have in store for me. What are the important calls? I separate important partner calls from Potential prospect or vendor calls that might be happening? Prepare for any of those calls, whether it's, you know, setting up like QBR or making sure I take a quick look at account mapping to make sure that I know like any new overlaps that might exist since our last conversation and kind of just being Aware of what might be happening in the week coming and that gets rid of a lot of the stress that you might have on Sunday night or Monday morning. What we've kind of translated that into as a team, I. Are this other thing called 15 five, so should really take 15 minutes. There's a couple questions that I answer every single week, and those questions are slightly different than the ones I look through on my Friday checklist. So rather than kind of getting a bearing of like, what did I accomplish this last week and what's on deck for the next week, I look at like What are my biggest priorities for the week coming and what are the ops that are in play? We have an overlay, co-selling model at Partner Stack, so, I might not be as tied closely to opportunities that are in play as I would have in the past. And so this just helps me know, like, who, which AEs do I need to coach? Who do I need to talk to? What updates should I be getting? We're all, all ultimately reporting into the same c r o, making sure that we're aligned on timelines and whether or not a partner is involved. How involved are they? Do you need me to pinging them? So kind of getting that like Bearing from the revenue perspective. And then that, I feel like between those two checklists and the 15 five allows me to kind of get this like holistic understanding of like, where's my week headed? Where was my last week headed? Which then you can slowly boil down into like, what does day-to-day look like?

Will Taylor: 9:31

Very valuable insights. And do you feel like it gets rid of those Sunday scaries you're, you're no, no longer afraid of Sunday or Monday.

Negar Nikaeein: 9:39

Oh yeah, big time. Like Sundays. I are a breeze now.

Will Taylor: 9:43

I my tactic was just brute force optimism. I just go into Mondays and I'm like, I love Mondays. I'm gonna do great. But your strategy seems a lot better. It sounds much more tactical and it moves things forward. So I'm curious around like the, that sounds, that sounds great, and I know that's gonna help people, let's say They're in an organization that is maybe struggling or they're getting, you know, this top-down pressure. So there's this like chaos around them where they're like, oh, I gotta do even more. Now when chaos strikes, and maybe if that's happened to you in the past where there's just like this additional pressure coming in, what do you do? What do you double down on? And what do you maybe not do or avoid so that you don't fall into any traps? When I talk about that chaos coming, what comes to mind for. Things that you've done that have really helped or again, avoided.

Negar Nikaeein: 10:36

Oh man. I think we all live in so much chaos and. That question is actually really great timing because I do feel like I've just come out of a period of chaos where, you know, we're launching this brand new program and there's so many different types of partners to work with, and you're looking at the data and trying to identify like, where should I be spending my time? And maybe in the past having not spent it in the right places and wanting to move forward, spending it. Doing something that's productive and valuable for the organization. So how do you parse that out and, and identify what those things are? One of the things I did was like a, a full audit and I took a look at like, what are all the partners I'm working with and who are they? What are they driving? What are they contributing? How are we working together? What are like the fundamentals around their business? Are they themselves driving revenue? Are they struggling? You know, how often are these conversations around P R m or partnerships or affiliate coming into in their business to kind of get like a good holistic understanding of What their business and what the partnership looked like together. And then once I went through that audit, I think it provided a lot of clarity. But again, I love putting everything in my mind onto paper. So then I take that one step further and I think, okay, if I wanna change the chaos between now and the end of Q four, let's put together a 30, 60 90. And let me try to conceptualize. What the next three months will look like and what are the actions I'm gonna take within those next three months to reprioritize everything I'm working on. It doesn't have to be super detailed, but I think it helps visualize like what it looks like to move away from one thing and to move towards something else. Whether it's a process, whether it's a specific partnership, whether it's launching something new. So those are kind of like, The things I think have helped move away from chaos into better organization. And then I recently joined partnership leaders and was able to kind of get into that mastermind ecosystem that Chris Levo is, is running. And what I've found with that is like engaging with peers and hearing like How are you doing this? What are your thoughts around this? So for example, if I'm working with partners who aren't sourcing revenue, but they're definitely influencing revenue in the right place how are you guys tracking that? Where are you tracking that? What, how are you using the data once you have it? Those are kind of like new questions that it was happening in the background, but again, it was a lot of chaos. It wasn't tracked properly. And so how do we kind of Look at what our peers are doing and see what we can steal or, you know, use some inspiration to kind of like make yourself better. So those are kind of in the last month and a half things I've actually done to kind of shift away from that chaotic place to somewhere more

Will Taylor: 13:57

Nice. It sounds like recentering by, you know, getting multiple sources of feedback, but then also recentering and refocusing by really making sure that the partners that you're spending time with are driving impact and having that hard look, like you said you even mentioned the, the business fundamentals, which I haven't. Heard of specifically, but it makes so much sense because if they're on, you know, a bit more of a downtrend, then it might not be the best time for them to lean into a partnerships opportunity, nor would they have as much like revenue opportunity to work with, with you as well. So, for those hard conversations, I'm curious, what are some of the, like questions that you ask and like how do you Let's say, you know, it's going well with a partner, but then they're also, let's use this year as an example, they're also facing the economic downturn or the impacts of it. What are some of the things that you're asking, and how are you having that hard conversation? Because I. I imagine it's not the most comfortable thing to, you know, wanna slow down or like, maybe even part ways or really just say like, you know, no to opportunities. How do you approach that? What do you prepare? What kind of questions do you ask in that conversation when it's starting to be more around that harder conversation? What's your take?

Negar Nikaeein: 15:18

Yeah, I, great question. I think like it. In, in any point of the partnership, whether it's onboarding a new partner, running that discovery with the partner, or maybe it's a year later and you've worked together very well, and you're coming up on like a new fiscal year. I think at any point it can make sense to resurface these questions because no one's business is linear. So understanding like how many logos are you driving per month, what are the average contract value of each of those logos that you're, that you're seeing come through? What's your capacity? So if you're working with agencies, maybe they only have capacity for three clients at a time, you are sending them referrals. Now their max capacity, and there's probably no revenue that you're gonna see coming from them in the next six to 12 months. So understanding what capacity and onboarding might look like at the organization. And then understanding each business unit as well. So getting a really good understanding of You know, a CSS team at one organization might look completely different than the CSS team at another. I know for agencies, It was a little bit of a uphill battle for me to really understand like, what does a delivery mean? What does service mean? And how is that different from what their BD team might be doing versus like, where does the VP of client success spend most of their time? So understanding the nuances between the different roles within an agency have been very impactful. And, and then exactly how you mentioned like that allows us to then plan. So if X agency can only onboard three customers per quarter, Let's be mindful about what we send their way and our expectations and planning around what they might be sending us. And then if we're working with a tech partner and their CSMs are separate from their account managers, for example, well maybe we're spending more time with their account managers when we should be spending more time with their CSS team. So these are the little places that you can kind of start to tweak and and adjust when you're having those difficult conversations. Like I think. It's, it's, you're talking to another human being like it might be a company at the end of the day that, that, that that human being is representing, but you know, any, any like. I think like basic fundamentals and like relationship management should be followed. So honesty, transparency, I think if it's not working or maybe you think we should pull back just a little bit on the amount of time we spend together I think it's really important to relay that information as transparently, honestly, and empathetically as possible. And usually they understand, like, I don't think Unless there is a meaningful limit in the amount of revenue potential that maybe you're sending a customer, they or a partner, they shouldn't be too upset. But you can always revert back to like QS KPIs to really keep track of the relationship as like a, hey, like this is what we've committed to. This is where we're at. Here are some suggestions for what I think we should do moving forward. How do you feel about that? What suggestions do you have or what do you think makes sense? And when you approach it collaboratively, I think it might have a much better reaction than what people might think when they're approaching those difficult

Will Taylor: 18:55

Nice. And you also might learn something as well because you know, if you're addressing why isn't this working or why is it headed in the direction that it is, maybe they have some ideas that they were either sitting on or hesitant to share or just never even really brought up. You could learn that from them as well. So that's, that's very wise, very good insights. I feel like Our audience is getting so much value right now. Let's focus on the number one tip. So, because you've given a lot today on the podcast, I wanna focus on that number one thing. Let's say the listener, they really enjoyed what you had to say, but they're like, you know, I just wanna do one thing. What is that one thing that you would recommend they do to make sure that they're managing their time in the best way possible? Not getting spread too thin and are focused enough to drive value. What is that number one daily or weekly practice that you would recommend that they do?

Negar Nikaeein: 19:54

I might be giving a really obvious answer here, but I think it's that Friday checklist, like it has been such a game changer in preparing for my week ahead and feeling like I go into the weekend confident with the work that I've. Put out over the week. And so if, if anyone can, and Fridays I find tend to just naturally be a little bit slower. Like there's not as many meetings. It's tends to be a time that people can take four admin. So from like nine to 10:00 AM have your coffee chill, put on some good music, and just do that audit of what you've done this week. What you plan or want to achieve for the next week. And then you can identify if there are things, loose ends that you, you know, haven't tied up yet that you can go into the rest of the day accomplishing. So I'd say that's my number one secret tip that I would give people.

Will Taylor: 20:53

Use Fridays for project management, not for only thinking about the weekend because if you have work, leftover work, you're gonna think about it throughout the weekend and that's when those Sunday scaries come in. So, thank you so much, Nagar. Anything else that you wanted to share with? The partner people, whoever's listening where they can find you if they wanna chat more, what you're working on.

Negar Nikaeein: 21:15

Well, you can always find me on LinkedIn and if anybody's in Toronto or Waterloo, apparently like always happy to meet up and chat. And. I think it's, it's been so interesting to learn from peers and see what people are doing and see where that can kind of like impact your day to day. So I'm always open to like a quick coffee chat or anything like that.

Will Taylor: 21:39

And you'll get even more value from Nagar if you did that. And of course, check out Partner Stack and what they're doing. They are of course, supporters of Partner Hacker when we were Partner Hacker Near Bounds now that we're near bound. And we love Partner Stack. So go, go check them out. Thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the Howdy Partners podcast. We will see you on the next one.