62 - The Nearbound Playbook: Proven Strategies for Success - Will Taylor & Isaac Morehouse

Isaac Morehouse and Will Taylor reflect on the year 2023 and the impact of partnerships in the world of nearbound marketing.

Will highlights the importance of partnerships in the buyer's journey and introduces the concept of the bow tie model, which maps out the stages of the buyer's journey and identifies the best types of partners for each stage.

Isaac and Will emphasize the need for partner people to take the lead in implementing nearbound plays and driving the success of partnerships within their organizations.

They also discuss the importance of data and tactical execution in moving the needle and the value of social networking platforms like LinkedIn in B2B marketing.

Looking ahead to 2024, they discuss their plans for the Nearbound podcast, the release of the Nearbound book, and the evolution of nearbound.com.

Key Takeaways:

• Nearbound marketing is highly valued by companies looking for efficient growth.
• Partner people play a crucial role in driving nearbound plays and need to take the lead in implementing them within their organizations.
• Companies are still investing in partnerships despite economic challenges.
• Ops data and tactical execution are key to proving the value of partnerships and securing resources.
• Social networking platforms like LinkedIn are undervalued in B2B marketing and offer opportunities for demand creation and trust-building.

Quotes:

• "Nearbound marketing works, whether it's for pipeline generation or brand recognition." - Will Taylor
• "Running nearbound plays has to be driven by partner people." - Isaac Morehouse
• "Just because your company is not investing in you doesn't mean they don't want to or won't invest in nearbound." - Isaac Morehouse
• "Companies are still investing in partnerships because they see the efficiency and value it brings." - Will Taylor
• "Ops data and tactical execution are what's moving the needle in partnerships." - Will Taylor
• "LinkedIn is still undervalued in B2B marketing and offers opportunities for demand creation and trust-building." - Isaac Morehouse

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction and Year-end Reflection 02:17 Takeaway 1: Nearbound Marketing Works 08:11 Takeaway 2: Nearbound Plays Driven by Partner People 22:38 Takeaway 3: Companies Still Investing in Partnerships 36:46 Takeaway 4: Ops Data and Tactical Execution 41:44 Takeaway 5: Value of Social Networking, Specifically LinkedIn 46:02 Building Trust and Connection through Nearbound Marketing 47:20 Key Takeaways from 2023 48:32 Looking Ahead to 2024 49:55 Exciting Plans for 2024 51:06 Phase Two: Proving and Validating Nearbound 52:36 Getting Rubber on the Road in 2024 52:44 Fun Teasers for 2024 53:12 Closing Remarks and Call to Action

Transcript

Will Taylor: 0:00

Nearbound marketing works. Whether it's from pipeline generation or brand recognition, there is a positive effect and. People are hungry for it as well. They want to know more about it. It's more aligned to how the buyer goes through, this journey more traditional marketing funnel or a sales process. So it much more focuses on, when do they become pain aware? When do they become ready to engage in considering a solution, and so on and so forth. howdy partners and welcome to the Howdy Partners Podcast, where we give you tactical insights so that you can do your role better.

Isaac Morehouse: 0:41

You are so much more professional than I am. Incredible intro. Uh,

Will Taylor: 0:47

I That's it's required, but I.

Isaac Morehouse: 0:50

oh, I didn't get the memo. Um, this is a kind of a, kind of like a year end. Um, both of us thought. let's do an episode that we can do a crossover, the nearbound podcast and the Howdy Partners podcast to kind of wrap up the year 2023 and reflect a little bit. Um, both of us had, uh, at this time of year, uh, getting guests and things is always a, a bit of a challenge. And so I, I reached out to Will and said, Hey, let's do this together. Uh, Jared's outta town, we had, uh, we had a guest cancel, and then I thought this would be a really fun way to kind of, for both of these podcast feeds to, um, to reflect a little bit on the year. A ton. A ton has happened in the world of partnerships in 2023. Uh, it's, it's almost crazy. Will to think what, like a year ago, January of, of this year where we were and what was going on. Like we were partner, hacker hadn't hadn't yet merged with Reveal, and then just in the world in general. The economy had definitely started to tighten up already and companies were kind of, you know, trying to get lean and get tight and the sort of the, the zero interest rate days were over. Um,

Will Taylor: 2:04

It seems scary

Isaac Morehouse: 2:06

yeah, it was kind of like, what's going on? No one's really. Sure. Um, and, and I, I don't know. Well, I guess I won't, I won't just keep, uh, you know, pontificating about that. Let's jump in'cause I kind of thought a fun framework would be. What are the takeaways? What are your top takeaways from 2023? Like when you look back at the year, what are the main things you learned? I've got a couple and I know you've got a couple. Let's start with you.

Will Taylor: 2:32

Do. Do we wanna do? Like I do one. You do one or?

Isaac Morehouse: 2:36

Um, maybe, but I kind of, some of yours I kind of liked even. Yeah, no, we'll do that. We'll do that. We'll go back and forth. So you go first.

Will Taylor: 2:43

Okay. So this one I'm, I'm very excited about because I've been personally working on it and executing on it and building models around it. And that is that nearbound marketing works, whether it's from pipeline generation or brand recognition, there is a positive effect and. People are hungry for it as well. They want to know more about it. I've been mapping the buyer's journey to marketing programs with partners, and I talked about that on the previous episode of the Howdy Partners podcast, and I've been talking about it in conversations whenever I bring up the model that I've built, I. Um, that I've standardized and, uh, there's no confidential information. Don't worry, Isaac. Um, and people are like, I want that, they're, they say immediately makes sense. It adds clarity to the process. And as a partner person, I can clearly identify where I can include partners and how it's gonna benefit the business.

Isaac Morehouse: 3:42

This is the bow tie. Correct.

Will Taylor: 3:44

is the bow tie? Yep.

Isaac Morehouse: 3:45

You're such a dandy, you know, a, a a foppish dandy.

Will Taylor: 3:51

Does the mustache go well with

Isaac Morehouse: 3:53

uh, will, will, and I have this little thing where I use obscure words and then he stares at me angrily. It's kind of, it's our special thing. So, um, well you're not wearing a bow tie, but walk, walk me through what is the bow tie, uh, customer journey? What, what, what's the, what's the framework and the model, and I guess people are listening, so you just have to describe the visual.

Will Taylor: 4:15

Yeah, so, uh, I definitely didn't create the original, uh, version of the bow tie journey. I heard it on, uh, I believe it was Sam Jacobs talked about it at the nearbound Summit, and it immediately sparked ideas in my mind where I thought about, okay, bow tie model makes sense for a business to think about how the buyer moves through the different stages, which I'll talk about in just a moment. But then for me, I'm always thinking Partnerships and nearbound. How can I layer partners over top of this and give myself clarity to understand, you know, where best partners can fit into the buyer's journey. So the bow tie buyer's journey is essentially, uh, it looks like a bow tie. It's two funnels, uh, joining at the the end point where on the left side you have awareness, which is your typical top of funnel. From a marketing perspective, brand awareness, and then it gets into nurturing them. Converting them. Selling to them. They make a purchase, which is the smallest point, the middle of the bow tie. And then on the other side you have onboarding, then ROI realization, and then they become an advocate, and then they become a brand ambassador. So the more success they see from the tool after purchasing, the more likely they are to talk about it. And so it then extends to the right side of the bow tie. It will increase reach because they're going to be more likely to organically bring it up in conversations, or maybe they're on stage and they talk about it. So that's the bow tie model in a nutshell. And it's, uh, more aligned to how the buyer goes through, um, this journey again, uh, more traditional marketing funnel or a sales process. So it much more focuses on, you know, When do they become pain aware? Uh, when do they become ready to engage in, uh, considering a solution, and so on and so forth.

Isaac Morehouse: 6:07

Have, have we published a piece of content with this on your bone.com yet? Will,

Will Taylor: 6:11

Uh, just the Howdy Partners podcast episode. I've written a social post about it. I am getting a graphic made for it, so I'm kind of doing this in the background, so don't

Isaac Morehouse: 6:19

we should do like a full blown, um, And not, not like a Hey, here's how to do it, but how it's actually worked for us. Because you have been working increasingly closely with my team at Reveal the market team and you're the partnerships person and it's been really cool to figure out not just how to do these plays.'cause like that's almost, that's almost a fun sort of hacky part. It's like how do you go out and like find the people that surround your buyer and figure out ways to do stuff with them, but how to actually, it's like. Pay attention to what you're doing and really how to track it, which is still a work in progress, but to be able to see whether or not it's working, what's working. And it'd be really cool to see, um, you know, how we, whatever, whatever a good Click Beatty title is, how we leverage the bow tie model. Uh, you know, how we put a bow tie on our partner marketing, I don't know, something, something ridiculous. Uh, but to kind of break down, you know, with the visuals and everything, I think that'd be a really cool, um, thing that we could spin out of, of these conversations. And I, and I've really enjoyed like learning out loud and putting this together with you. I remember it was probably back, what, maybe like quarter two of last year when we kind of, you and me and Jared were kind of chatting like, Hey, look. We gotta, we gotta figure this thing out ourselves. Like what does it really look like to do nearbound marketing? Um, let's go out there and look at all the different types of people that surround buyers that we can partner with. So yes, our tech partners for sure. But then what about other influencers? What about communities? What about like, you know, media brands? What about companies that maybe you don't even have a tech partnership with and. What to do with them, like, how to figure out who to do it with, what to do with them, how to run it, how to track it. And we've like, you've really been building this as we've been going along and it's been really cool to see.'cause to your point, like it 100% works. Like I don't need to see anything else to know that it works. the, the the challenge. Well, I guess I'll let you finish'cause I, this is a good segue to my, to my takeaway number one from 2023, but I'll let you finish on the, uh,

Will Taylor: 8:27

Yeah, the only other point that I, I wanted to mention was, so I, I explained the, uh, already existing bow tie model, which again, I don't, I won't take credit for really good way to think about, um, how buyers move through engaging with your business. But what I added in as a layer was the partner categories that fit best for each stage. So, for example, maybe a media partner or a community partner is best for building awareness. And then as you get closer to the Purchase. Maybe it's a consultant or post-purchase. Maybe it's an agency to help them onboard. And so really mapping the type of partner across each stage in the bow tie journey. And then you can of course, slot in an example of that partner for yourself. And then what I also did was layer in the KPI that could be most important. Then the program or activity that you could run with that partner so that when you are executing, you know what kind of partner to include, you know, what KPI's important in that activity and that'll help you deliver success to them and of course realize success on your side. Uh, and then what I also did, which I won't get too in the weeds of, but basically I created a menu of what the marketing team will typically do. And that could be from the marketing calendar, the, the content calendar, and you can then start mapping activities to KPIs and what is the sales CTA for that activity. Probably really good for your own sales and marketing alignment, but again, you're layering in partners so that you. And if I'm a partner manager and I wanna include partners, I know exactly where I know what KPI I'm looking at, and I know how that is going to affect the bottom line and how sales is going to engage with it thereafter. So, um, yes, we will create content around it and, uh, I'll give you the specifics and the, the sheet that I have as well.

Isaac Morehouse: 10:16

I really love, I really love the way that you mapped it out across the buyer journey.'cause it's such a good like reminder for partner people that their job layers across the entire Journey, the entire life cycle and that, and at each different stage, they're gonna have to probably work with different departments, right? I mean like, yes. Marketing also layers across the life cycle. Yes, there's some of that. But you know, I could imagine having a story to tell about a particular account, let's say, where you can say, Hey look, we got this account. In our, you know, in our universe, in our top of funnel through a partner. Maybe it was a, an influencer that, you know, introduced us or mentioned us in a webinar.'cause we were doing something with them and then they came and signed up and then once they signed up and onboarded, we got a demo call booked with them because another partner ran an influence play. And maybe that's, you know, whatever, uh, one of our advisors or former employee or something like that, then. We worked with a tech partner who has them as a customer already to close the deal by getting some intel along the way with our sales team. And now on the success side, we're working with an agency partner we've connected them with to help them get implemented and set up. And you could literally like show the entire journey, the customer journey and show like four different partners. Which, Which, step they played, which role they played along that journey. And you don't need too many of those stories to make the point to say, look, this is how this universe works. This is the ideal world. Of course, it's always messier than that and harder to plot, but I really, I really like that you're thinking multi-partner type and you're thinking across every stage in the journey. Now of course, managing that on lots and lots of accounts with lots and lots of partners, it gets more complicated. But I think that's a really great framework.

Will Taylor: 12:06

I love it. So you like it? We can talk about my raise later. And now let's talk about one of your lessons for.

Isaac Morehouse: 12:14

Oh, you wanna talk about a raise suddenly? I don't know how to track partner Influence. Sorry, Um, so, so, if your takeaway number one was that marketing with Partners works that nearbound marketing works. I completely agree and I have a related takeaway that's been interesting. My number one takeaway from 2023 is that running nearbound plays has to be driven by partner people. that may not sound like a crazy revelation, uh, and it's not really, but we spent a lot of effort in 2023 really trying to talk to, you know, through Partner Hacker and Reveal, uh, as well, primarily have a lot of partnership pros in our audience, in our, in our universe. We really wanted to say, look, we've got to get the other teams on board with nearbound in order for this to work. And that is 100% true. Like if partner people love it, but no one else gives a shit, sales team doesn't care. They don't wanna do any selling with partners. You know, marketing team doesn't wanna do any nearbound stuff. CSS team doesn't care. You're gonna have a really hard time. So like, speaking to those audiences. And of course, you know, the nearbound summit is structured that way. We have a day about sales, a day about marketing and, and really trying to get that persona, get the leaders from those departments to come in. Um, and we focused a lot on sales in 2023. We came out with the sales blueprint. We did a lot of stuff with, uh, some people in the sales world. Uh, Scott Lease being one of the, the, the more prominent ones. Um. I think we learned some really interesting things. We definitely made progress there. A lot of people are now looking to and talking about selling through their network, selling with PE around the people that surround buyers. Salespeople are listening, marketing people are listening, but here's where there's a disconnect. They're listening, but then they either don't know what to do at all, or they only think of nearbound in terms of. Their personal network. If they're a salesperson, like, okay, I'll then, I'll go look at my personal LinkedIn network and I'll just try to like, and, and that's part of it, right? Or marketing people. Okay. I'll go work with an influencer and we'll do like a, you know, like a sponsorship of some like podcast or something. That's part of it that is tapping into people, your buyers trust, but they'll completely overlook the partnerships their company already has'cause they don't know what to do with that. They need, that needs to be initiated. They will need to be a part of. Implementing these plays. If you're gonna do co-marketing with a, with a tech partner, your marketing team's gonna be a part of that. If you're gonna get your sales team to be tapping into tech partners for Intel intros influence, they're obviously gonna be a part of that. But it needs to be initiated and, and like initiated and managed by the partner person. And they have to do it in a way that like meets those other departments where they are. So here, here's what's happened. Sometimes. You'll get a partner person who's like, yeah, nearbound is the future. It's gonna save my company. I'm really important'cause I'm the partner person and nearbound is needed.'cause inbound, outbound are suffering. You might even have their sales and marketing leaders say, yeah, I'm all about nearbound. We definitely need some help. We definitely need to to reach people that buyers trust. And then nothing happens because the sales and marketing leaders don't know what the next step is. That's where that partner person, they've gotta proactively not come and say, Hey, here's how you should do your job. Come and say, let's take sales for example. Instead of saying you need to redo your whole sales process to to run the three is of nearbound. Just go start paying attention to the deals that are stuck and that are not moving and say, can I bring partner influence on these deals? And then I can't think of a VP of sales in the world. If you say, Hey, you know that deal that's stuck, that seems like it's dead in the water, I might be able to help get that thing going again with a partner. If they're gonna get excited about that, right, because you're, you're making it bite size. You're bringing it to them like Don't have to, you don't have to sell them on this huge vision of let's do nearbound. You just have to bring them some immediate wins marketing team, like, Hey, I know we're focusing on these target accounts. I mapped those with our partners and we got overlap with half of those with this one tech partner over here who's a great fit for us. Here are three things that I talked with them about that they might be interested in doing this quarter, and we could split the cost on an event. Would you be interested? And now you've queued it up, you've made it easy. And then saying like, I'll manage the relationship with them. Do you know, are we interested in running these activities? But just recognizing like you've gotta be the initiator, the partner person has to be the initiator and the one that's continually running and not, not in terms of telling other departments what they should be doing better, but helping them get more success with what they're already doing. I think that's been a, a really big takeaway.

Will Taylor: 16:56

Yeah, the, the word that I keep using and, uh, it's been used in the past, but like truly an orchestrator, like you are the conductor and, uh, maybe it's A step further.'cause you're not just, you know, on the, the stool in front of everybody else saying do this and do that. Um, you are doing that to an extent. But, um, the other piece that I've found from all of my conversations, I would say basically every single one of them templates. Direct questions and direct actions. Yes. No, no. Like how do you feel about this? Which I have an example I'll quickly go through, but like the actual enablement of click this, do that, copy, paste this. Like of course we have the nearbound sales blueprint that really helps out with that. That is what drives action. And the story I have is, I was working with a partner and they, uh, they came to me and they said, um. Uh, I'm having trouble with CSMs and I said, okay, interesting. Tell me how you asked the question to the CSM and they said, um, would you feel comfortable about doing X, Y, ZI? And that's very gray area. Do I feel comfortable doing that? Well, I don't know. That's an emotion. Like today I feel comfortable. Tomorrow I might not feel comfortable. And so it's, it is a yes no question, but it's not a, can you do this? Can you send this email that I already typed out for you? Things like that really changed the game because what this person then did is they tested it over two weeks and then they said, Oh my gosh, that worked so well. They immediately took action because yes, they can copy and paste an email to the person that I'm trying to reach, um, versus how do you feel about this? Are you comfortable? It's, you know, polite to ask that, but it's not direct and it's not action oriented. Um, so it immediately becomes a bigger task in that person's mind. And so the orchestration, the being, the conductor is yes, beyond that stool in front of everybody, but also give them No reason to say no because it should seem so simple. And the way you do that, in my opinion, is things like templates and directness and clarity on why are they actually doing this, and what is the specific ask. Uh,

Isaac Morehouse: 19:17

100%. There's such a huge difference in, you know, if you get an email, like as a marketing person, I'll get an email. You know, let's, let's say this is hypothetical'cause you would never do this to me. Will, let's say I get an email from you and you're forwarding something from a partner I. It's like something that they're working on and they've proposed. We work on it together and the email says, you know, Hey, this partner similar ICP, they wanna do all these initiatives. We could maybe do some blog posts with them or maybe some podcasts. They also mentioned that they have an event next week if maybe we wanted to send someone. They mentioned they also thought it'd be interesting to explore an integration'cause they're, they're not really sure if that's gonna work and maybe we could do some joint go to market there. We do have some shared co customers that already overlap. Maybe we could work on influencing those deals. What do you think? And I'm like, what the, what do I don't know, that's like 50 million things to think about versus something like, you know, Hey, here's this partner. I noticed that they were doing this thing that's similar to this thing we're doing. Here's an email I drafted that says, Hey, we are running this event. Looks like you're doing something similar. Would you be interested in joining our event and we can join your event and we'll do them together and do like a swap. Yes or no? That's a very, like, here Isaac, I drafted. Are you okay if I send this email? And if they say yes, I can intro to them to you. That's very concrete. It's like, same with a salesperson. You know those, those three i's of nearbound. It's not just like, Hey, salesperson, read this guide and start running it. You can actually do it for them. You can come to them and say, Hey, I noticed this deal has had no movement for the last two weeks. Here's what I know about this partner. Here's an email I drafted that either I can send to them or you can send to them that says, here's we're working on this deal, blah, blah, blah. Would you like me to do that? And then it's like, as a sales person, it's like an easy either yes or no, like, oh, either no, you don't have enough context. That would not be appropriate. Or, heck yes, click send. That's so much better than, Hey guys, are we involving partners in our deals? You know what I mean?

Will Taylor: 21:18

Yep. Perfect. This is wonderful for the Howdy Partners podcast. We're getting nice and tactical. Um, but yes, the, uh, the partner person you need to orchestrate. That's, again, just racking around in my mind, is And make it easy for, you know, the guitar player to play the chord that they're supposed to,

Isaac Morehouse: 21:37

I have a guitar on the wall behind me. You know, that's what B2B people. I, I'm, I'm like torn. I should really turn my camera because a, a good B2B person. Needs to have a guitar behind them so that it subtly signals to people that like, I'm sensitive and artsy and a, and a, you know, well-rounded person. Um, so, or in your case, a, a glowing crystal skull,

Will Taylor: 21:57

That's right.

Isaac Morehouse: 21:58

I guess, what is that signaling, do you think?

Will Taylor: 22:01

Um, I don't know. I have no thoughts other than That's interesting. This is different

Isaac Morehouse: 22:08

I didn't know if it was like a finely crafted, deliberate, like, I wanna make sure when people see me on video. They associate me with, it kind of looks like the meme with like the brain that gets like brighter and brighter. You know what

Will Taylor: 22:20

Oh, yeah. Yep.

Isaac Morehouse: 22:21

Yeah. So maybe the more intelligent, the points that you make, the brighter, that glowing skull behind you gets.

Will Taylor: 22:28

smart.

Isaac Morehouse: 22:29

I'm gonna, I need to get a remote so I can control it, and then I get to determine whether you're making a good point.

Will Taylor: 22:34

Perfect. I would love

Isaac Morehouse: 22:35

be a fun, that'd be a fun game. Okay.

Will Taylor: 22:37

that

Isaac Morehouse: 22:39

Uh, there, you know what the people are here for? The witty banter will, let's be honest, you and I, you got a good rapport. Uh, okay. number two, takeaway from 2023 for you, Mr. Taylor. I.

Will Taylor: 22:54

I would say that companies are still investing in partnerships, uh, although we did see, you know, layoffs and whatnot, which definitely unfortunate, and those companies would be more so the, the naysayers on the partnership strategy, uh, being important to that company. Uh, but in a majority of the conversations, if not all the conversations that I've had with founders or CEOs, they are saying this outbound thing is tough, inbound is tough. What's this nearbound thing? How can I do it? I literally talked to A CEO today who said, I'm trying to grow my business efficiently and I want to show to my board that. We are growing and at a profitable rate, uh, or rather an appealing rate to, to the board. And so they said nearbound sounds like it, is it, and so tell me more about it. And so not only are companies wanting to invest in this kind of strategy, uh, but they are, and the good companies, I would say, are continuing to do this. Um, now this isn't just validated from You know, me and Isaac because we're the, the nearbound folks.

Isaac Morehouse: 24:03

don't, I don't, even know if I agree with this one. I think you have to convince me. I'm not sure'cause I'm hearing both things, but Go ahead.

Will Taylor: 24:10

Yeah. Okay. Interesting. Yeah, it's, it's definitely like when I think of who are the companies performing well today, I don't immediately think they're doing outbound and inbound. Um, I, I. Think, and I see examples that they are leveraging partners and they're tapping into the ecosystem. Um, and again, it's not just me or our team or these founders and CEOs that I talked to. Um, the, an example is from the in revenue capital team at the near round summit. They were talking about how this is efficient growth as well and what they are advising companies to pay attention to. The, the advice that I give to CEOs and founders is you still need to do the outbound and the inbound and you also need to do it until you have product market fit. And then you can start thinking about nearbound. It shouldn't be, you know, one third right at the start. It should be something that you continue to nurture over time to get to that one third because you do need that product market fit. But, um, one of the lessons I had was Companies are still investing in, in partnerships because I had some worries that companies would stop investing in partnerships and it would be a short-term mentality with this lack of capital available for, uh, these businesses. And also the other efforts struggling, which has been for some companies, and maybe it's like a 50 50 split. I'm not sure the exact, you know, ratio of companies doing this, but I've seen more companies than I would've expected this year to think about partnerships, ask about partnerships, and start doing more of partnerships, um, as well. So my lesson was companies are still doing it despite, you know, us seeing layoffs and whatnot. I would venture to say that the, the layoffs and like the negative news probably gets more attention than those who are doing it right and maybe even doing it and are not formally knowing that they're doing it, uh, in that regard. So. Yeah, that's my lesson. What are your thoughts?

Isaac Morehouse: 26:09

it's interesting, uh, you said, you know, you, you sort of tell people, look, you know, start out outbound, inbound and then sort of introduce nearbound. I think that's, that's largely been true. I'm kind of wondering, I'm, I'm pretty radical. So, uh, especially if you're starting a company very early stage, like what if from day one you're like, my entire go to market, my entire distribution strategy is indirect. And like if you, if you gave yourself that as a challenge and said, I'm gonna spend the weekend thinking about, you know, imagining you're at the very early, you haven't launched a product yet, or whatever. What would my go-to-market look like? If from day one it was primarily if, if I'm using outbound and inbound to supplement and aid nearbound, but nearbound is number one. I actually think that's a very interesting, potentially powerful cheat code for new companies coming on the scene. But.

Will Taylor: 27:02

I would agree. I, I would focus on, and this is actually what I said to the person I spoke to today, I would say, I said, uh, there are, and this hasn't been formalized, but like I talked about how there's kinda like three sections of nearbound on as this one third. So three sections of the one third, uh, one is the actual like referral motion, co-sell motion. It's much more strategic and hands-on requires effort, but Very high value, good joint value as well for uh, clients. The other part is the nearbound marketing, where it's, um, more influence focused. You're trying to get, gain as much reach as possible. Uh, and then it's also the third piece is focusing on your customer network, where, you know, if you make advocates there, then they can become brand ambassadors and then they will, you know, do the selling for you, so to speak. Um, and so from There, I, I started to think about like, if I started a company today, what would I be doing? And I would probably focus on that customer piece because that's going to give you so much insight into the product market fit that you could have. Um, because what I was The guidance I gave was you should probably reach 60 to 70% of product market fit, really know where, which direction you're heading in. Then start doing this external, nearbound with these partners because you'll at least be able to identify, great, we're headed in this direction. So these partners are our ideal partners to work with or communities, clusters in the ecosystem. Um, and to get the most robust information, it would be through Customers. And I would say that setting up some level of customer referral program or um, like, I don't wanna say partnering with your customers'cause it might not be exactly a partnership, but getting close to the, the customers and really understanding their world. I think that would be, in my opinion, the best way to capitalize on trust, not do as much selling as you might need to do without bound and inbound and, um. Maybe just have, I guess, less aggressive growth goals because you wouldn't have as much control over what the customers do. But yeah, I, I agree with you that it could be interesting to tap into it

Isaac Morehouse: 29:11

Yeah,

Will Taylor: 29:12

from the start.

Isaac Morehouse: 29:13

to, we might see models just being more and more upfront about just recognizing that like efficient distribution. you don't, if, if you have a partnership from day one that's like, Hey, we can already reach a bunch of people through this partnership, um, that's really, really attractive. Uh, okay, so my takeaway number two, so yours was people are still investing in partnerships. I'm going to riff on that a little bit. Here's my takeaway. Number two, just because your company is not investing in you doesn't mean that they don't want to or won't invest in nearbound. what I mean by that. Because a lot of people are like, well, my company just laid off half the partnership team, or my company will not gimme any more resources. So like, yeah, you guys are over here. You're the, you're the hype men. You know? Yeah, bound. It's everywhere. Everybody loves it. Everybody's investing in it. And they're like, but I'm not seeing that reality. Both of those things can be true at once. So here's what's always true. If you show any business leader. They can spend$1 to make$2, they will do it. If you can show them and prove to them, it doesn't matter if it's in your marketing budget, if it's in your sales, but it doesn't matter. Hey, look, when we spend this amount, this is what we get in return. And it's, this is a, you know, a winning proposition. So if you start from like me, my existing partnerships role and department and budget, I'm not getting anybody saying, I want to throw a bunch more money in it. Like that's probably true. But if you zoom out and say, do does your company think they're going to get more bang for the buck, the more they spend on outbound, almost nobody is saying yes to that. It's like the returns are diminishing. They can spend more to get more, but it's kind of like the, the more that they get keeps getting less, do they feel it's gonna get more through sort of traditional inbound stuff? Probably not quite as bad as outbound, but you're probably not gonna get anyone saying, yeah, what we're gonna do is just keep spending more on these, what we've been doing and uh, it's gonna work better. So that's accepted, right? I always say people are problem aware, solution wary. Then that next step is where this gap comes in. If the partner person's like, see, inbound and outbound aren't gonna get us there, gimme more money. It's like, well, I don't know. What the hell have you done? For the last couple years, I'm not sure. I don't know if I should give you more money. I don't have the proof, but if you start from like a further like first principle standpoint and say, if we're not gonna get it without bound and inbound, we gotta get it somehow. Here's the proof that you've, we've gotta do it through people, our buyers trust, which includes more than just the traditional partner plays that you've been running. But it's, it involves surrounding that buyer at every step. Exactly the model you laid out, sort of the bow tie model. And then here's what I'm gonna do in quarter one to see how we can influence this stage of the funnel by partnering with these kind of partners, this stage by this, this stage, by this, here are the goals that I wanna achieve this quarter. Here's how I wanna prove that we can supplement what we're losing in inbound and outbound with nearbound and it's concrete. It's not just like, give more money to partnerships. I think that's where you will see people win it.'cause CEOs, they're, they're listening, they're looking for solutions. They're not looking in an environment where your company is struggling. It's harder to sell that. It's, the numbers are harder to hit. Having a department head come to you and say, well, my department who's been here the whole time, uh, we are the key to winning, so just give us more money. Nobody's gonna, nobody's gonna buy it. It's like, why I gave you money last time? Like, what is that gonna do? But staying, here's what we know is true. Here's this new thing I'm going to do. Here's the way I'm approaching this. Not just gimme money, but here's specific plays that I'm gonna run. Here's a bounded timeframe through which I'm gonna try to prove that we can get more returns on this. And even being upfront about, look, some of these things are very imperfect with tracking, but here's what we're gonna do as the best proxy, right? Like you don't have to pretend that you can track everything. You don't have to try to get into all those fights. But if you just kind of present that case and like, Hey, gimme a shot. Gimme three months, gimme six months to move the needle. Let me just pick the deals that are stuck and see if I can get one of'em this month to move through a partner, and then that will kind of validate the model. I think that's where you can have, even in a down market, where people are like just in general, right? Because like potential general things like partnerships. Are people investing more in partnerships? The answer may be no. Are people investing more in things that work? The answer is always yes. So if you can be something that works, you will get a yes no matter what the macro economy is doing. It's not about the economy, it's about you in your current role at your current company.

Will Taylor: 34:06

I love it. Um That is the sentiment from those conversations where it's like, this seems like it's working. The data suggests that it is more efficient, and that's why these CEOs and founders that I've talked to are, you know, raising their hand and their ears are, are perking up. Um, not because they go, I know everything about partnerships. I believe in it and I'm ready to do it and invest in it. It's, this seems like it's working, it's this. Different motion or this additive motion and it seems more efficient. Uh, that's what they care about. They don't necessarily use the word partner. Uh, they do use the word nearbound.'cause in general it makes, uh, a bit more sense for, for comparing it to outbound and inbound. And it's interesting you mentioned the, um, The phrasing of, Hey, I'm this department and we are the key to your success. Give me money. Uh, I, I also had a conversation today about someone who is really good at building Business cases for not only starting a partnership but also buying tech. And so he said, what he does is he goes to each department and he says, what's your key initiative for, you know, this quarter or this year? And they say, X, Y, Z, and we got this program to hit that KPI. He says, okay, well this partnership or this piece of technology will help you with this piece of the pie in what you're doing. And they go, great. Can't wait to to see that. And then he'll go to each department, get the same results of, Hey, we can help you with this initiative that you're focused on, this tech or this partnership helps with that, so we're going to help you with that. They go, of course, great. You're just gonna help me and I just gotta keep on. Keep it on. Great. And then he goes to the, uh, executive team and he says, li listen, our team is doing this, this, and this. We help with this KPI, this KPI, this KPI. And so this is the partnership or this is the technology that is going to enable that. Um, and then of course he can roll it up to forecasting numbers and. The cost of, let's say a tool is minor compared to the benefit that it could have, even if it's, you know, a 2% increase on everything, depending on the company size, that could be massive. And so, um, yeah, showing, it's like showing the work. And I think that actually leads into my third point, which we didn't plan out the how well this is gonna flow, but that's just how it works between Isaac and I, although.

Isaac Morehouse: 36:37

magic. Will.

Will Taylor: 36:38

although you don't have a mustache, so we're not like, completely aligned. Maybe eventually, and then we'll level up even further. Um, but my third learning for 2023 is that ops data and tactical execution is what is moving the needle, which might be obvious, where it's like people actually doing the work. Um, but the reason that I, I think it's important to call this out is one the Community has been talking more about partner ops and there are some people on the fence on how important it is, but I would say the ability to show impact and provide an update to, let's say the CEO of this impact, I. Is truly what's moving the needle. That's what's going to get you resources. That's what's going to get you top-down, buy-in and then buy-in of course from the other department heads. And then of course you're going to be able to better execute'cause you have more resources and more buy-in and everything is much more efficient. So ops data and tactical execution, uh, is truly moving the me the needle. And uh, uh, the other reason I think it's important to call this part out is because. There used to be a lot of hype around partnerships and I mean, I played into the, the hype, we played into the, the hype as well. Um, but those who only played into the hype and focused on the, the feel good, um, I. They were likely impacted by rounds of layoffs. Some people, of course, were affected, uh, wrongfully and, you know, the company probably made a bad decision. But at the end of the day, if you are showing value to the business and you're putting up numbers, then they're going to, they're going to keep you on. They're going to continue to give you resources. And, uh, some cases, you know, unless the business is, um. I don't have a, a good word for it, but unless the business does not operate well, uh, and then they just decide. See you later. Partnerships. They'll probably make the decision based on the data. And so, um, there are more models coming out that help with attribution, with making sure you're taking the right tactical steps. And of course we're doing as much as we can for that. Um, and you know, shameless plug of the Howdy Partners podcast, we're all about the tactics and how to execute. But things like the nearbound sales blueprint, like I've been implementing that myself. And it's all because of the tactical resources that are now out there. And that's what people care about. They wanna see how The plane can land. And so a trend over the last year is I, I get the hype, I'm on board with the hype, but now I need to execute because the team is saying, where's the data? What are the ops associated with this? What are we actually doing? And so anyone who has actual process documented is, in my opinion, going to be the winner. And also who people turn their heads to when they need help.

Isaac Morehouse: 39:26

That's, that's probably a great prediction for 2024 as well, that sort of the next stage in getting nearbound implemented starts at that data layer. So there's kind of this interesting, you know, our, our motto is trust is the new data, which is very kind of at the high level, right? Like people are overwhelmed and they're looking at people they trust. I think from a, from a business standpoint, that doesn't mean that you don't absolutely need data. In fact, what you need is data about who your buyers trust that you can feed into all of your processes and the other data you're using that can drive the way you're running your activities. So right now, I don't see a lot of rev ops types, a lot of data nerds on the revenue teams, recognizing the value. Of partner data and how that can help direct activity. So, you know, for example, if you're looking at prioritizing accounts, prioritizing which accounts your reps work on, you're probably gonna pull in some intent data, some, some revenue intelligence type stuff from a six sense or whoever it might be, um, whether it's for your outbound stuff or for your target accounts that you're doing stuff with. And there's another layer of data, like which ones of these accounts are customers of one of our partners? I think partner people are playing around with and using that kind of data, but it's not really making its way into the stack. It's not really integrating or even just looking at, Hey, even if we're not gonna actively co-sell cu people who ha, who are also customers of these two companies that are partners of ours, when they are customers of those two companies, we close them at x percent higher rate. And maybe it helps you realize, you can recognize trends, Hey, maybe there's a time thing. If they become a customer of this type of company at this stage, usually within three months, they're looking for a solution like ours. There's like a a time trigger that like they become a customer of this partner. We are probably next in line two to three months down the road and like a lot of different ways you can use this data to like feed into a lot of the revenue intelligence, account assignments and all these things that are already happening. That people are using first party data and third party data, and very little second party data and partner teams are the ones that are sitting on this. And I think the next step is probably gonna involve them really getting a good relationship with those rev ops teams and convincing them, Hey look, this is really valuable data. We already have it, it's already in our network and there's a lot of things we can do with it. So, uh, I love that. I love that, um, that point. Okay. I guess I have one more I gotta do, don't I? Uh, I'll bring it home. So, ah, boy, there's a whole bunch I could go with. I'm gonna, I'm gonna pick one that's a little bit different topic. Um, third, third, takeaway from 2023 is that, I think, I'm gonna say like social networking broadly, but specifically LinkedIn. There's two interesting things that I see there. One. I think it's still dramatically undervalued in B2B. The people who understand that, let's just use LinkedIn for now, but it it, when I'm saying LinkedIn, it also includes some other sort of social networky type things. Maybe it's some, you know, community Slack groups or for some people it might be Twitter or other platforms too. But um, but LinkedIn in particular, people who are super cons. Consistent and active on there in like value add ways. I, I always think of Pete Capta. I think he's like the absolute, like farthest end of the spectrum in terms of just absolute baller on LinkedIn in terms of quality and quantity and relevance to his audience. Now, not everyone's gonna be that way and everyone has to as a CEO especially, but. There's so much value. They're the demand creation. Chris Walker talks about all this time, uh, talks about this all the time, even though more and more people are doing it, it's not saturated yet. There's just a lot like being in the discourse in the stream, in the feed among your target audience. When your target demographic, they get on LinkedIn frequently. Pretty much everybody in B2B, somebody at the companies you're going after is on LinkedIn. Probably every day. Certainly many of people are at least a couple times a week if you are coming up in their feed consistently. The value of that is so, so massive. And then the little triggers and signals of, oh, someone I trust like this, oh, someone I trust commented on this. Right? These are, these are the reasons that some of these nearbound social plays and things like that work. I think the value is still underestimated by a lot of people, mostly because it can't be measured. But here's the flip side. Also, it's also kind of fragile.'cause there's this weird paradox that like once people start recognizing the value more, it very quickly gets formulaic and then it's, then it stops working. So you see, oh wow, that really does work well, let me see who's doing it. Well, okay, these five people are doing it well, okay, let's copy them. And then everybody starts copying them. And then all of a sudden LinkedIn is flooded to the point where you kind of like, wait a minute, everybody's trying to. Create demand by running these plays and it like, it, it dries up, or a LinkedIn changes their algorithm and they say, we're not gonna show anybody anything anymore unless you pay to boost it. Right? Which is kind of what Facebook did back in the day. Um, both of those things are possible and likely so I say like LinkedIn is still so much more valuable than most people in B2B realize. The, the, the opportunity cost of not having consistency in there on a personal level company, your brand page doing stuff, yeah, that's great. But like key individuals at the company who have the ability to just share insights and build trust with the, with the target audience by just, by just telling them, uh, basically, you know, how to, how to insights that will help them do their job better. Um, huge, huge value, but just recognize. It gets gamed really quickly and you already see early signs of like fake engagement or like fake AI generated comments that are just really low quality. And the more of that stuff comes in there, the more people will tune out. It's this constant race, so like I would never say bet the firm on LinkedIn. In two years, maybe it's useless, but right now I've been shocked given how much people talk about it, it's still undervalued as a way to create demand and build trust.

Will Taylor: 45:50

it, it's also, and I think We did a, a whole episode on this. Um, but it's like, it's great to just organize your own thoughts as well as you're creating content that's good content that you can repurpose elsewhere. Or of course you can put it into the campaigns that you're running and it can be, you know, a deposit that is part of this larger blog post. You do a snippet of it, give your opinion, and you're giving this flow content out in the medium that the people enjoy reading it in. And it does have an effect like I've been on. Uh, on calls, helping people out with their, their nearbound strategy and, and using Reveal and I even had someone say, Hey, it's Will Taylor. Like they, they knew who I was. And so when I come in it's, it's this immediate trust and we're all laughing at the start of the call'cause they made some, some funny comments. And so, um, I mean, even from like a sales perspective, you can then bring those people in, uh, just as if they are a partner, they're the subject matter expert, and then it makes the process even more warm. And so.

Isaac Morehouse: 46:53

it's, it's amazing how that look like people feel like they know you, they feel like they, you know, can trust you. They know kind of what your angle is or your shtick or what you're all about, and those small things can just give you such a jumpstart at like getting to value faster. Um, I just, if you're not doing anything on there, you, you don't see what you're missing out on. But if you are on there, you see. All the time, whether it's dms and things that come in directly or people that said they heard about you on LinkedIn or just that people you already have relationship with, where the relationship is stronger. Because even though you haven't talked to them in a month, they feel like they've been keeping up with you for the past month, you know?

Will Taylor: 47:33

Exactly.

Isaac Morehouse: 47:36

Um, okay. So those were our top three takeaways from 2023. Your number one was, uh, mark Nearby Marketing Works. Uh, my number one was. Partner people. You still gotta be the ones initiating and running these nearbound plays, even if the other departments are all the way bought in. Uh, your number two was, lemme see if I can remember. Uh oh. People are still investing in partnerships. Uh, and mine was kind of a subpoint in that, that like, even if they're not investing in partnerships generally, they will absolutely invest in things that work. And so if you can prove that your nearbound stuff works and then your number three was. We gotta get the rev ops component rolling. There's a, there's a data layer to the nearbound plays that, um, is a really key part, and mine was LinkedIn and sort of nearbound social, still undervalued, but could pretty quickly get too noisy. Uh, if, if, uh, things go keep, keep going with AI and all this stuff, what did I miss? Will.

Will Taylor: 48:36

I mean, you just mentioned ai. I guess we didn't really talk about ai, but um, that's,

Isaac Morehouse: 48:41

It's obligatory that you mention AI in every piece of content these days.

Will Taylor: 48:45

So it's good that we didn't a fresh take.

Isaac Morehouse: 48:48

we'll just, we'll, we'll just say AI and then make sure that shows up in the show description so that, um, you know, so that we don't anger the AI bots that are crawling the web and thinking that we're failing to, to talk about

Will Taylor: 48:58

That'll help our SEO inbound strategy that

Isaac Morehouse: 49:01

Yeah, 100%. Um,

Will Taylor: 49:02

on.

Isaac Morehouse: 49:04

Hey, so I'm super excited about 2024 as well. Um, just for everybody who's been followers, listeners of the Howdy Partners podcast, the nearbound podcast, really excited. We got some fun stuff coming in 2024. Jared and I are going to be, um, recording in a physical studio together. Um, we've got that lined up, which will be really fun and we'll kinda alternate. We'll continue to do episodes with guests, but we'll occasionally do episodes where the two of us are more kind of going down some current events or even like, uh, mail and questions from listeners. Um, we have near the book. I, I don't wanna give a date yet.'cause this project just keeps getting bigger, but it's incredible. I would say it's about 75% done, um, probably sometime in quarter one, I'm hoping. Uh, that will be really, really awesome. We got some cool partnerships we're working on, of course, as always. Uh, and then nearbound.com is gonna continue to evolve and grow. We have more and more kind of content coming, some new updates and ways that we're gonna arrange it. Um, some new ways to sort and search that stuff. Will, what other fun stuff can we tease? Get people hyped about 20, 24.

Will Taylor: 50:11

It's fun stuff that we can tease. More tactics. Uh, I'm eager to share even more than I already am and, uh, I'll be able to share more because I'm doing even more of

Isaac Morehouse: 50:24

So, So, share even more than you already are. Does that mean like oversharing? Like you're gonna start posting really personal stuff. You know, I cried last night while I was watching a Hallmark movie, that kind of stuff.

Will Taylor: 50:36

I already do that, but No No, I will be, um, I'm just thinking of like templates and models because I mean, I have shared that stuff, but like we just talked about today, I should, uh, do better at formalizing it and making it more of a stock piece that people can download and leverage versus, you know, a social post that was probably really good and very valuable, but got lost in the ether. And, uh, yeah. So more of that.

Isaac Morehouse: 51:03

Uh, and will, you've heard me say this to the team? I, I really feel like, um, for us, 2023 was all about let's, let's make nearbound a thing in terms of let's, let's help the broader go-to market world. See? They need more than outbound inbound and they need to start working with partners and let's help get that message that partner people already know. Let's let's mainstream that message and get people talking about this concept of nearbound. And I feel like that has definitely happened, and that's been awesome. Now we go to phase two, which is. We gotta prove and validate this thing and get really tactical about it. So like, yep, you agree outbound and inbound or harder. A couple years ago, most, a lot of people wouldn't have agreed with that. Now they agree. Yeah. You generally agree. I think it makes sense to try to go through people that your buyers trust and try to go indirectly and, and you know, surround them. That's not too hard to get people to agree that that's a good idea in general. Then it's like, but who's actually doing it? Isaac? Is it working? Who's making it work? Who's doing it at scale? How are they doing it? How can I do it? And those are, we have little dribs and drabs of some anecdotes here and there, and we've got some pieces, but that's really for me, what the story we're trying to tell in 2024 is like, let's go talk to the people who are doing it, who are doing nearbound. Well tell those stories and let's. Break down exactly how to run these plays, starting with just the simplest stuff step by step. How do you, how do you figure out which partners surround, which accounts? How do you figure out how to engage them? How do you take that to your teams and make that work out? And like, how did this person do it? How did that person do it? It's really about, um, really about getting, getting rubbery on the road, so

Will Taylor: 52:52

Getting on the road and 2024 is the year of Isaac grown a mustache

Isaac Morehouse: 53:00

I don't, it's not gonna happen, will. It's, it is not gonna happen. You know, if I, if I could grow an actual full beard, I would do like a beard and mustache, but because I can't grow a full beard'cause I'm only like half a man, um, I just, I can't do it. I

Will Taylor: 53:15

Okay. I'll grow my mustache twice as long just for you then

Isaac Morehouse: 53:18

Yes, you'll make up. You'll pick up the slack everybody. Thanks so much to listen for listening to the nearbound podcast slash the Howdy Partners podcast crossover episode. Hey, I never do this, but I've been told by my marketing compadres that I have to start doing this subscribe. To the podcast and subscribe@nearbound.com for the nearbound daily. We've got a bunch of other content on there. Um, and, uh, you know, go, go subscribe to the, uh, the Howdy Partners podcast. What do they say? Smash that like button. What are those? The, the, the zoomer influencers.

Will Taylor: 53:51

That's what the really cool people say. You nailed it.

Isaac Morehouse: 53:53

Okay. I'm glad I'm, I feel like you're undermining me right now, but I will, I'll just leave it there. Your sarcasm can never tell. That's where we're stopping it. Take it easy everybody.